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STRANGE SIBERIA

Along The
Trans-Siberian Railway

A JOURNEY FROM THE GREAT
WALL OF CHINA TO THE SKY-
SCRAPERS OF MANHATTAN

BY

MARCUS LORENZO TAFT

tftU

NEW YORK: EATON & MAINS
CINCINNATI : JENNINGS & GRAHAM

Copyright, 1911 by
EATON & MAINS

TO

MARY AND MARION,

MY

FELLOW -TRAVELERS,

WITHOUT WHOM THESE

JOURNEYINGS WOULD HAVE LOST

THEIR CHARM.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

chapter page

Foreword 9

Sketches of Travel — Time and Route
— Our Mascot — Courtesy — Occident
and Orient — Coincidences — Yankee
Notion.

I. To Go or Not to Go 19

II. The Russian Language 25

III. The Start 30

IV. The Great Wall 34

The Great Wall of China — Legend.

V. Mukden 38

Imperial Railways of North China —
Port Arthur — The Asiatic Armaged-
don— Policy of Russians and Japanese
— Hunghutze Hobgoblin.

VI. Harbin 51

Geography from a Chinese Standpoint
— Migration — Hotel — Money Matters
— Pristan — Chinatown.

VII. Across Manchuria 62

Russia's Real Navy — The Trans-Sibe-
rian Railway — Express Trains — Rus-
sian Paternalism.

VIII. King- an and Genghis Khan 72

Alpine Regions — Genghis Khan — Mongol
Imprints — Chinovnik .

IX. Siberia 83

Prairie and Forest Fires — White Birch
— Trans-Baikal Scenery — Customs
Examinations — Chita — Albazin.

X. Irkutsk 100

Safety — Hotel Metropole — Lutheran
Church — Bolsche Kaya — Museum —
Russian Holidays — National Sesames
— Shopping— Street Strolls — Church
Music — Churches — Schools — Ex-
cursion to Monastery — Marriage Hin-
drances— Friendships of Russians and
Americans — Unique Honor to the
Bible.

5

6 STRANGE SIBERIA

CHAPTER PAGE

XI. The Jews in Russia 140

National Contrasts — Sowing Dragon's
Teeth — Reaping.

XII. Jermak, Immigration and Exiles 145

Jermak — Vereshchagin — Immigration
— Exiles — Opportunity of the Painter
— Religious Liberty — Raskolinks —
Russian and American Pioneers Com-
pared.

XIII. Tomsk 174

Yenesei River — Taiga — Tomsk —
Women with Careers — The Black
Hundred — University of Tomsk —
. Market Place — Prison — City Park —
Dentists — Yellow Literature — Legend
and History — Repulsive Printing —
Cathedral Service.

XIV. Across the Steppes 211

Onward from Tomsk — Bridges and
Rivers — Omsk — Petropaulovsk —
Kourgan — Butter Business — Russian
Eggs.

XV. Over the Urals 222

Chelyabinsk — Scenery — Minerals —
Demidoff, the Miner — Souvenirs.

XVI. The Volga 228

Samara — Division of Night and Day —
Scythians — River Travel — Kazan —
Tolstoy — On Shore and Stream.

XVII. Through Russia 241

Ride to Moscow — Moscow — Redeemer's
Gate — French Revolution — What's
in a Name?— -Saint Isaac's Cathedral.

XVIII. Homeward Bound 249

The Voyage — Quarantine — Russian
Detectives — A Russian Memento —
Home Again — Robinson Crusoe.
Index 256

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
A Siberian Village Colored Frontispiece

FACING PAGE

" Small Heart, Fiery Cart," Chinese for " Look

Out for the Locomotive" 30

Pastor Te (Virtue) 36

Chinese Soldiers Saluting on Railway Station
in Manchuria; Trilingual Railway Sign in

Manchuria 39

Russian Cemetery at Port Arthur 42

Tunnel with Inscription, "To the Atlantic

Ocean" 87

Ice-breaker "Baikal" on Lake Baikal 95

Hotel Metropole, Irkutsk; Log-sliding in Park,

Tomsk 104

Lutheran Church, Irkutsk 108

Statue of Alexander III at Irkutsk Ill

Museum at Irkutsk 112

Cossack General, Lama Head Priest, and Sibe-
rians at Irkutsk 126

"Everywhere is Life," Painting by Yaroshenko . 154

Bacteriological Institute, Tomsk 190

Old Cathedral, Tomsk 192

The Market, Tomsk 194

Tomb of Theodore Kusmitsch, Tomsk 202

Timber Raft on the Volga 238

Nijni-Novgorod, with World's Fair Grounds on

opposite side of Oka River 241

Saint Isaac's at St. Petersburg 247

Russian Chapel at Wiesbaden 253

FOREWORD

On vous a (lit, que la Russie est un pays ferm6;
n'en croyez pas un mot. Tout ce que j'ai desire
voir, je l'ai vu, et on m'en a meme montre plus
que je n'en demandais. — Victor Tissot.

Sketches of Travel

If Henry van Dyke's analysis of The Spirit
of America as stated in his lectures before
the cultured audiences at the Sorbonne,
Paris, is correct, then travel in a foreign
country, or observing foreigners in other
lands, does not necessarily give an outsider
a true insight into the real genius of a peo-
ple. A person must have lived long enough
in a foreign land, and so mingled with its
inhabitants as to know their hopes and
fears, their life and ideals, before he is able
to form a just estimate of the genius of a
nation. Now, our trio were simply passing
travelers. These are nothing more than im-
perfect sketches of travel roughly drawn, to
keep fresh some salient sights on our unique
trip.

It certainly was unique in one respect at
least, for not until Marion and her mother
stopped over at Irkutsk had any other repre-
sentative of the fair sex, other than Russian,
ever visited that thriving Siberian city. This
9

10 STRANGE SIBERIA

fact was told us by the compiler of the sec-
tion on Irkutsk in Baedeker's Russland.

At times the sketches may appear rather
unpolished and even jagged. This could
hardly have been otherwise. Frequent strolls
on uneven streets, sudden quiverings of a
steamer, spasmodic jerkings on a railway
train, and zigzag bouncings in a dashing
drosky may have caused the pencil to make
many an unforeseen leap and turn. Still,
let us hope that properly applied shading
during leisure hours at home, retouching
these imperfect outlines, has somewhat
helped to make them, like Nast's cartoons,
lifelike and recognizable.

Time and Route

In order to enjoy the Trans-Siberian trip,
the proper time and route must be consid-
ered. Otherwise, disappointment will surely
take the place of pleasure. A trip through
the Trossachs when a Scotch mist veils the
scenery and chills the tourist produces a far
different impression than when the azure
heavens enchant the rocks and woods of ro-
mance and story, and ozone-laden breezes
blow softly over the lakes and through the
glens. In our Siberian journey we were for-
tunate enough to have fallen upon a choice
time — late spring and early summer. Earlier
in the year snow covers the ground and biting
cold reigns outdoors, while inside the cars

FOREWORD 11

the double sashes and doors are rigidly kept
closed, so that only Russians can endure the
hot, oft-breathed air. Later, the heavy rains
make the roads and paths almost impassable,
and even the inhabitants try with mosquito-
netting to protect themselves, as best they
can, from the swarms of mosquitoes, flies,
and other pestiferous insects.

Then, again, care should be taken in se-
lecting the best route. The route to or from
Europe via Warsaw ought to be avoided, on
account of the changing of cars at an un-
seemly hour of the night, and the strict cus-
toms regulations, which have made the place
notorious. The "Nord Express" is quite ex-
pensive, and many a traveler has experienced
vexation, inconvenience, and delay at Alex-
androvo, the frontier station.

For restfulness, comfort, and scenery, the
steamers of the Finnish line between Stock-
holm and Saint Petersburg are far prefera-
ble. The windings in and out among the
rocky, wooded islands of the Finnish archi-
pelago remind one of the Thousand Islands
of the Saint Lawrence River or of Matsu-
shima bay, Japan, so that this water route
affords a most fitting and delighful prelude
or postlude to the Trans-Siberian journey.

To Travelers

Chiefly to assist future travelers have we
occasionally gone into minute particulars,

12 STRANGE SIBERIA

such as we in vain searched for, and of which
we would gladly have availed ourselves be-
fore undertaking this overland journey.

Our Mascot

Throughout our journeyings in the Tsar's
dominions, we were entirely free from any
dread of being shadowed by a Russian spy.
During our sojourn at Tomsk, the capital
of Siberia, we were not even asked to show
our passport. Who can say but that our ex-
emption from all such espionage, of which
travelers in Russia so generally complain,
was due to the fact that a playful child was
unconsciously acting as mascot for our Taft
party ?

Courtesy

Travelers sometimes complain of incivility
on the part of Russian officials. Such was
not our experience. Now and here I desire
to record our high appreciation of their un-
failing courtesy. This was especially notice-
able from officials along the railway lines
and in public buildings. In the descriptions
of Irkutsk and Tomsk, later on, more de-
tailed accounts will be found.

At Saint Petersburg there were two ob-
jects, which we particularly desired to ex-
amine, the Codex Sinaiticus, and the Vase
of Nikopol. One Brooklynite had lately
written to a New York periodical, how his

FOREWORD 13

party had been hurried through the Imperial
Library, without seeing this celebrated manu-
script, discovered by Tischendorf in the Con-
vent of Saint Catherine on Mount Sinai. He,
however, determined to see it. So he relates
how he stubbornly refused to leave the build-
ing, after all the rest of his party had gone
out, until he succeeded in gaining his point.
Without let or hindrance it was shown to us,
passing travelers. Provided with a card
from our old friend, United States Consul
Ragsdale, formerly of Tientsin, China, we
were escorted by a polite custodian to the
stand, where this sacred treasure was care-
fully wrapped in a faded yellowish cloth.
This he removed, allowing us leisurely to
gaze at this famous parchment and to ex-
amine the handwriting of Professor Tischen-
dorf attesting the genuineness of this ancient
New Testament, so marvelously preserved to
our day.

In the Hermitage at Saint Petersburg,
the same marked courtesy was shown to us,
perfect strangers. The world-renowned
silver Vase of Nikopol with its unique chas-
ing was not seated, as queen, on her usual
pedestal, where she holds undisputed sway
over the other rare beauties, crowding her
throne-room so full. A suave Russian guard,
so soon as he was aware of our desire, guided
us to an official in civilian attire, busy in
his office nearby. This gentleman explained

14 STRANGE SIBERIA

to us that the vase had been removed to be
cleansed and would not be again on exhi-
bition for several days, but he offered to
show us photographs of it. Fortunately,
just as we were leaving, the artisan who
was renovating it came along. This offi-
cial explained to him our desire. At once
they both started to escort us to see the
vase. On the way the head official asked
us whether we would like to look at some
other rarities, and led us to a case with
glass doors, screened by inside curtains.
Unlocking the doors, he showed us a won-
derful collection of antique figures of clay,
some in their natural white, and others
gilded or colored with various delicate tints.
Then we walked through back passageways
to another building and entered a small
workshop. Before us stood the large silver
vase, just lifted from its chemical bath,
which workmen were busily engaged in bur-
nishing. The size and graceful contour of
this celebrated vase charmed us, as we gazed
upon these lifelike, agile, and daring cowboys
of days gone by. These Russian officials
seemed delighted to have us carefully scan
the lifelike scenes of primitive Scythians,
chiseled upon this choice trophy dating back
to the days of Alexander the Great. Could
a custodian of the National Museum at
Washington, or the Metropolitan Museum of
Art, New York, have been more courteous?

FOREWORD 15

Occident and Orient

A new cycle marks the East, both far and
near. Tremendous changes have already
taken place. The commingled strains of
Eastern and Western life in Constantinople
and Tokyo are weaving a far more beautiful
fabric than Joseph's coat of many colors.
Shanghai and Cairo in their weird, ever-
changing color effects, and their incessant,
startling contrasts, present par excellence
the most fascinating "living pictures" in the
world. Unter den Linden, Champs Elyse'es,
Rotten Row, and Riverside Drive, with all
their gorgeous display, are tame in com-
parison.

To-day along the thronged Bubbling Well
Road, Shanghai, swarthy coolies may be
seen trudging wheelbarrows, built some-
what on the lines of an Irish jaunting-car,
upon which laughing almond-eyed maidens
sit back to back with their tiny feet dan-
gling in the air. Suddenly, the toot of a horn
is heard, when the coolie veering his load to
one side, barely escapes collision with a
speeding motor car and its European oc-
cupants.

When in January, 1907, our steamer
stopped at Alexandria, Egypt, a clipping
from a Cairo newspaper read to this effect:
"Major-General Wingate and party are re-
covering from their injuries, received in an

16 STRANGE SIBERIA

accident, when their motor car ran into a
camel on the road to the Pyramids." Some-
times the camel gets the brunt of the shock
and sometimes the autoists.

Not quite two millenniums ago, Alaric
and the Huns, and later Genghis Khan and
his Mongol hordes, swept as with a besom
of destruction everything out of their way.
In our time the Japanese bantam has made
the Russian bear take his predatory paws
from off Port Arthur and southern Man-
churia. Shall our eyes see the Chinese giant
regain his ancestral domains in Manchuria?
Events in the Far East just now seem to be
pointing that way.

Coincidences

A month after our landing at New York
found us living in "our own hired house"
at Lakehurst, New Jersey, a quiet retreat
amid the forests and lakes of the famous
pine-belt, far away from the glare and stir
of modern electrified city life. To our sur-
prise, we found here a genial retired octo-
genarian, William A. Torrey, who had lived
in Saint Petersburg when Marshall Jewell
was American minister there. By his busi-
ness tact he had succeeded in supplying
American torpedoes for the Russian navy
and Baldwin locomotives for the Air Line
between Saint Petersburg and Moscow. In
his parlor was an artistic specimen of brass-

FOREWORD 17

work, presented to him by the Tsar as a
token of personal friendship. The group
represented the Tsar and his driver seated
in a sleigh drawn by two prancing steeds
in regular Russian style.

Another coincidence refers to some un-
couth footgear, purchased on our overland
trip, merely a pair of heavy Russian ga-
loches. They were probably a product of
one of the enormous factories of the Russo-
American Rubber Trust at Saint Petersburg.
One morning, a Russian Jew, a peddler,
chanced to come along. Recognizing these
Russian rubbers, he asked, "Where did you
get these?" When he was told he replied,
looking as wise as Solomon, "I thought you
did not buy them in this country."

Yankee Notion

The caustic comment, attributed years
ago to a quaint old American minister at
Saint Petersburg, is just as pertinent to-
day : "What Russia needs most is more soap
and spelling-books, fewer princes and more
country schoolmasters; fewer diamonds on
the barebacked court ladies in Petersburg
and more broken stones on the country
roads."

Abrupt Stop

One may ask, "Since your title is 'Strange
Siberia along the Trans-Siberian Railway,'

18 STRANGE SIBERIA

why do you not stop at the Urals?" Chiefly
for three reasons: First, some succinct
knowledge of China and Manchuria, on the
one hand, and of Russia and Europe on the
other, is essential as a proper setting to any
Siberian sketches. Secondly, the through
Trans-Siberian Expresses do not come to a
sudden stop at the Ural Mountains, but ply
regularly between Moscow or Saint Peters-
burg in Russia, and Vladivostok in Asia,
as their terminals. Thirdly, stopping short
at the marble "Monument of Tears" on the
frontier between Asia and Europe might
prove to be as embarrassingly abrupt as
that of the sprucely dressed sprig of a tour-
ist visiting Quebec. He was climbing up
one of the narrow, steep streets, leading from
the lower town to the citadel above. A
sudden misstep sent him coasting down the
slippery stones, knocking over a housewife
with her basket returning from market.
Both swiftly tobogganed together until they
landed at the base of the mountain. The
woman, whose eyes flashed indignation at
the author of her ignominious plight, looked
up at him, as if expecting an apology. As
soon as he could extricate himself from the
scattered market produce and from the en-
tangled skirts of his chance acquaintance,
he stood erect and politely touching his hat,
remarked, "Excuse me, madam — this is as
far as I go."

CHAPTER I
To Go or Not to Go

Distance not alone separates Russia from us, but
her customs, institutions, language, keep up high
barriers between her and the rest of Europe. Po-
litical and religious prejudices raise others. —
LeRoy Beaulieu, Russia and the Russians, p. 2.

Advice

"You had better not stop over at Harbin.
It is very unsafe there. Even the servants
in the hotels are all ex-convicts and crimi-
nals. They will rob you of your money and
passport." Such was the startling, gratui-
tous advice of the obliging clerk in the
Russo-Chinese Bank at Tientsin, China, as
we were tucking away in our pockets a
Letter of Credit, a roll of Russian rouble
bank notes, and some silver kopeks.

"I would not advise stopping off any-
where short of Moscow or Petersburg. There
is so little of interest in any Siberian town,"
was the unsolicited written prescription of
a Scotch physician, who had traveled from
Manchuria with his family over the newly
opened Trans-Siberian Railway to Scotland
and back.

"There is no use to stop over in Siberia.
You only see mudhuts, as in any miserable
19

20 STRANGE SIBERIA

Chinese village," volunteered an American
lady, who had come through from Moscow
to Peking in an express train. To stop over
anywhere in Siberia seemed generally to be
considered as downright folly. Rapidly
rushing across was the popular fad. One
pushing Yankee had actually made the trip
from New York to Peking in twenty-eight
days, and boasted that he could have made
the journey in two days less time had he
not delayed one day in London and another
in Moscow. A distinguished author, who
had traveled from Vladivostok to Moscow, in
reply to our query whether he had visited
Tomsk on his Siberian trip, said, "I merely
saw the city while the train stopped there."
A most remarkable case of hyperopia! No
other mortal was ever endowed with such
powerful eyesight as to pierce the dense,
primeval forests from Taiga, the junction,
to Tomsk, the capital of Siberia. The fact
is that Tomsk lies at the northern terminus
of a branch line, sixty miles distant from
the main transcontinental railway. After
the traveler has arrived at Tomsk he alights
at a handsome, snowy-white depot, situated
amid an extensive white birch park. All
through Siberia the railway stations have
not been built near the cities, but many miles
away. Some think that this was done for
political reasons, while others assert that,
like the enterprises of Tammany, the object

TO GO OR NOT TO GO 21

was graft. Such, evidently, was the case
of Tomsk, as we later learned from an in-
telligent resident of this important center,
which now unfortunately and inconveniently
lies far away from the main trunk line.

Early Desire and Late Decision

However, we were not so easily dissuaded
from our purpose. Such advice, no matter
how well intended, so much resembled the
cheap article generally current in the mar-
ket, the product of ignorance and prejudice,
that we simply took it at its face value. For
years we had decided that if we should ever
travel through Russian territory, we would
not dash through on an "Express Rapide,"
even if it were fast and luxuriously
equipped.

Russia, land of mystery, autocracy, and
promise, had long had an irresistible fasci-
nation for us. So we steadily kept on with
our preparations, determined to stop over
at important points in order to study at
close range the life of the people.

This purpose was strengthened by the fact
that Baedeker, in his guidebook on Russia,
mentioned Lutheran churches in all large
Siberian and Russian cities and towns. So
we concluded that, if necessary, we could
fall back on the knowledge of German, with
which a two years' course of study in Leip-
zig, Bonn, and Heidelberg had equipped us.

22 STRANGE SIBERIA

Near the confines of Russia at Koenigs-
burg, one summer, we had watched the
Polish Jews, clad in flowing robes and wear-
ing long, shaggy beards of precisely the same
cut as their kinsmen on the other side of the
Russian border. The appetite to visit this
immense, mysterious land was further
whetted by the realistic accounts which
our parents gave of their personal expe-
riences during a tour in European Russia.
Again, in 1886, our family spent a summer
at Kalgan, where we enjoyed delightful so-
cial intercourse with the family of a Russian
merchant, engaged in the overland tea trade.
It was by this inland route, traversing the
desert of Gobi, that the missionaries of the
American Board, stationed at Kalgan, es-
caped the fury of the Boxers.1 This sum-
mer, 1910, a railway, built entirely by
Chinese, whose engineers had studied in the
United States, has been opened from Peking
to Kalgan. When extended, it will be an
Air Line from Peking to Irkutsk, eliminat-
ing hundreds of miles and several days from
the present roundabout route via Mukden
and Harbin, Manchuria. Through the cour-
tesy of Engineer Yen — a graduate of Lehigh
University, Pennsylvania — we had, in the
fall of 1908, the rare privilege of riding in an
observation-car up through the famous Nan-
kow Pass. On the opposite side we could

'A Flight for Life, by J. H. Roberts.

TO GO OR NOT TO GO 23

see, trudging along the old caravan road,
strings of Bactrian camels, droves of black,
razor-backed swine, fat-tailed sheep, black-
haired goats, and occasionally swarthy Mon-
gols in gaudy attire and dirty sheepskins, in-
termingled with Peking carts, sedan chairs,
and mule-litters, as in centuries past.

Besides, we had spent a summer month, in
1883, at Vladivostok, beautiful for situa-
tion. There Lieutenant Nevinsky, a Rus-
sian naval officer in whose home we were
staying, treated us most cordially, showing
us sights on shore and taking us in a small
collapsible boat on the magnificent bay to
witness some Whitehead-torpedo practice.
Never can we forget his hospitality in tak-
ing us in. His furnished house was pro-
vided with only one double bed and one
couch, which he generously placed at the dis-
posal of our party. When we protested,
"But where will you sleep?" he replied in
Teutonic English : "That's all right. I shall
become a bed." Later, we learned that he
had extemporized a long steamer-chair for
sleeping purposes.

To-day, Vladivostok, "Queen of the East,"
as the name signifies, is the eastern termi-
nus of the great Trans-Siberian Railway.
The corresponding western garrison city in
the Caucasus is called Vladikaukas, or
"Queen of the Caucasus." At one end of the
long main avenue of Vladivostok stands the

24 STRANGE SIBERIA

imposing statue of Admiral Nevelskoi, on
which, are the bombastic but historically
untrue words of Tsar Nicholas I, "Where
the Russian flag has been hoisted it must
never be lowered." At the other end, where
the railway runs across the boulevard to-
ward Europe, is a post on which is engraved
in gigantic letters the plain notice,

Vladivostok to St. Petersburg,

9922

Versts.

These different glimpses on the eastern,
western, and southern frontiers of the Tsar's
realm only served to intensify our longing
and confirm our decision to cross over the
borderland and leisurely travel through the
heart of this extensive country. So no halt
was made in our preparations.

Not onty did we devour various volumes
on its history, travel, and folklore, but we
delved into its cumbrous language for ordi-
nary, useful phrases, that afterward proved
invaluable.

CHAPTER II

The Russian Language

"Nothing is worse than a harrier to the com-
munication of thought," was the lament of Li
Kamon no Kami, the Premier of the Shogunate,
who, after Commodore Perry's arrival at Japan,
had to make a treaty with "Western Barbarians,"
of whose language and intentions he knew noth-
ing. Later this same premier, because of his pro-
gressive stand, fell by the hand of a conservative.

Russian Literature

„aKCI|EJIbCIOP-b«.

"EXCELSIOR" IN RUSSIAN

"The Russian language," says Von Schier-
brand, "is of a wonderful richness and flexi-
bility, permitting the writer to adapt his
thought precisely to his words. It easily
expresses every shade of meaning, even the
faintest, as well as every mood. In that re-
spect it is without doubt the most perfect
instrument for literary work. . . . Russian
literary works, on their part, lose much of
their literary flavor by rendering into any
other tongue more than would translations
from the Italian, English, German, or
French. . . . The greatest, perhaps, of all
psychological novels ever written in any
literature is Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punish-
es

26 STRANGE SIBERIA

inent, when read in the original. Looking
at other departments of literature, what
could be more finished in its way than
Aksakoff's Family Chronicles? By perfectly
simple, apparently naive means, in limpid
and quite natural language, we here gaze
down to the very bottom of the Russian soul
and are enabled to fathom its complexities.
What warmth in the description of men and
nature! Or, taking Terpigoreffs greatest
story, Decadence — it is a veritable treasure-
trove for the student of Russian social con-
ditions, so minute and photographically
correct."1

However, most foreigners, like a certain
Englishman, regard the Russian language,
with its elaborate alphabet of thirty-six let-
ters, "as a combination of good English
letters and a large assortment of inverted,
reversed, and nondescript characters."

The Spoken Language

The excellencies of the written language
may all be true, but for the tourist the
spoken language is far more important and
usually quite difficult. As Marco Polo
shrewdly observes, "They (the Russians)
have a language of their own," which, un-
like English, German, or French, is not cur-
rent outside their country. Once, when

1 Russia, Her Strength and Weakness, by Wolf von
Schierbrand, pp. 235, 236.

THE RUSSIAN LANGUAGE 27

crossing the Pacific on the steamship Ocean-
ic, there was a big, gruff-looking Russian,
quite conspicuous on deck by his loud talk-
ing in rough, rasping tones. One day a
little American morsel of humanity peered
up at the tall figure as she asked, anxiously,
''Doesn't it hurt your froat to talk dat way?"

More than one traveler through Russia
has had to resort to the sign-language, usu-
ally more or less effective. Even that does
not always work, as a versatile American
frankly admits when he endeavored to pur-
chase eggs in a Siberian market, "The sign-
language for once failed to convey my mean-
ing. When I was at my wits' end I cackled
and the farmers at once brought me out as
many eggs as I wanted."1

Aware of these practical difficulties, we
took the precaution to take lessons in Rus-
sian from a native, committed to memory
useful words and phrases, and practiced on
every Russian-speaking person whom we
chanced to meet. This proved our salvation,
for in the large hotels at Irkutsk, Russian,
and Russian only, was spoken. It was also
indispensable at many other times and
places, as in dealing with street venders,
shopkeepers, and drosky-drivers.

Cultured Russians, who can converse flu-
ently in German, English, or French, reside
in all large cities, but the traveler does not

1 A Flight for Life, by J. H. Roberts, p. 294.

28 STRANGE SIBERIA

usually meet them. At Irkutsk we were
entertained by a Russian physician, who had
studied medicine in London. In order to
improve his English he was at that time
arranging to form a class or "circle," as he
called it, for the practice of English con-
versation. At his request we made out a
public notice for an English "Conversazione"
to be held once a week.

At Tomsk an erudite professor in the
governmental University was detailed to
conduct us through the well-stocked rooms
of the Museum. Our guide was unable to
speak anything except his native tongue.
His eager, kindly desire to explain various
rare specimens was seriously hampered.
The Latin and Russian labels proved of
greater assistance. After we had finished
our inspection and he had escorted us down
the main staircase into the capacious hall,
with a polite bow and a gracious smile he
uttered the word "Esperanto." We cer-
tainly needed some such talisman. Who is
enough of a linguistic prophet to foretell
whether the key to international intercourse
will be Esperanto, or, as others with good
reason think, English? At any rate, we
were firmly convinced that our visit to the
Tomsk Museum was surely as satisfactory
to us as was that of Peter the Great to the
Kunst Museum of Dresden. Waliszewski
narrates how that monarch arrived late one

THE RUSSIAN LANGUAGE 29

evening at Dresden, after a day of such
fatiguing travel that all his retinue were
reduced to a state of utter exhaustion. How-
ever, the moment after the Tsar had finished
dining he insisted on going to the already
celebrated Art Gallery, where he arrived at
one o'clock in the morning and spent the rest
of the night trying to satisfy his curiosity
by torchlight.1

1 Peter the Great, by WaliszewskI, p. 130.

CHAPTER III

The Start

The problem of Asia is a world-problem, which
has come upon the world in an age when, through
the rapidity of communication, it is wide-awake
and sensitive, as never before. — Captain A. T.
Mahan, in The Problem of Asia.

Changli, China

The fast mail from Peking to Shanhai-
kuan arrived at Changli a little late on the
afternoon of May 13, 1909. Our trio bade
farewell to the friends, Chinese and foreign,
who had gathered at the station. The boys
of the day school, drawn np in line on the
platform and dressed in their new uniforms,
saluted "good-by" in true military style.
Fortunately, we were not in the plight of the
father and mother, described in the Flie-
gende Blatter. These parents were sketched
as anxiously examining their huge con-
fused pile of trunks, bags, bird cage, go-
cart, bandboxes, and other paraphernalia,
to be sure that nothing had been overlooked.
The train was nearing the station when the
mother, realizing that something important
was missing, frantically screamed, "Where
is the baby?"

The boisterous crowd of fruit-sellers were
30

"Small Heart, Fikry Cabt"
Chinese for "Look Out for the Locomotive"

THE START 31

as usu.nl hawking the delicious fruit for
which Changli is noted. Mr. Mayers, of the
United States Department of Agriculture,
had visited this region and had returned to
America, carrying as part of his spoils the
thin paper-shell English walnuts grown
here. The large, luscious red persimmons,
whether fresh and juicy or dried like figs,
are favorites, as are also various species of
choice grapes, from the light green seedless
variety to the large, plump purple kind,
which the Chinese know how to keep fresh
all through the winter, and offer for sale
even as late as May.

Last winter's revival had invaded the
ranks of these fruit-sellers and claimed a
Mr. Wu as a Christian convert. Shortly
after, he came to our native pastor, Rev.
Liu Fang, and frankly confessed that, as a
Christian, he could no longer pad the bottom
of his fruit baskets with leaves, as was the
custom.

For ways that are dark,
And for tricks that are vain,
The heathen Chinee is peculiar,

but the Christian Chinese, as the Boxer up-
rising revealed to an incredulous world, is
quite a different article.

Friendliness

In the northeast section of China, near
the Great Wall, the mandarins have been

32 STRANGE SIBERIA

extremely friendly. The recent skillful cure
by an American physician of five Chinese
commercial travelers, who had been brutally
mutilated by cut-throats, increased their
friendly attitude. Near by were stationed
two camps of cavalry, commanded by Gen-
eral Ting, who manifested marked courtesy
toward us. It happened that we had met
him a couple of times on a railway train
and had greeted him civilly, as we would
any chance acquaintance. Accidentally we
learned from a military official of lower
rank that he was calling himself our friend.
Shortly after hearing this we visited him
at his headquarters in a temple by his camps.
He treated us to Chinese tea and English
biscuits and expressed a desire to prepare a
banquet in our honor. This we politely de-
clined. Thereupon he offered to send around
his own carts, sedan chairs, and horses to
take us to the station. We protested that
this was unnecessary, but, to our surprise,
when we walked out into the street to climb
into our own hired cart, we found General
Ting's official equipages already there await-
ing us. So Mrs. Taft accepted his highly
decorated mulecart, with official servants
and outrider, wearing the regulation tas-
seled hat, while her husband mounted one
of his elaborately caparisoned horses, pre-
ceded by a fat outrider on a strutting steed.
In this high Chinese fashion we proceeded

THE START 33

to the station — a spectacle to men and
angels.

Such ostentatious kindliness was a most
decided and agreeable change from the ex-
periences of foreigners some thirty years
earlier. Mobs cursing, pelting, and maltreat-
ing "outside kingdom men" were then no
uncommon events in China. At Chinkiang,
in walking from our home to the chapel up
the main, narrow business street, the shop-
keepers on either side would hiss out like
so many serpents, "Sah Yang-kueitze! Sah
Yang-kueitze!" ("Kill the foreign devil!
Kill the foreign devil !") Once an American
friend of ours was pursued by a butcher
with a cleaver in his hand. Maltreatment of
this sort would seem strange and unusual to-
day, so radically has changeless China
changed.

CHAPTER IV

The Great Wall

He [Samuel Johnson] expressed a particular
enthusiasm with respect to visiting the Wall of
China. I catched it for the moment and said I
really believed I should go and see the Wall of
China, had I not had children, of whom it was my
duty to take charge. "Sir!" said he, "by doing so
you would do what would be of importance in rais-
ing your children to eminence. There would be
a luster reflected upon them from your spirit and
curiosity. They would be at all times regarded,
as the children of a man who had gone to view
the Wall of China. I am serious, sir!" — BoswelVs
Life of Johnson.

The Great Wall of China

The Great Wall of China — comparable in
its massiveness and forced labor expended
on it to the Hanging Gardens of Babylon
or the Pyramids of Egypt — after rambling
for some thousand miles up and down the
frontier ranges of China, makes its final
plunge into the sea at Shanhaikuan (The
Barrier of Mountain and Sea). The break
in this barrier of solid masonry, through
which the railway runs, occurred, according
to a popular legend, in this way:

Legend

Among the horde of laborers impressed
by the despot Chin Shih Wang into the
34

THE GREAT WALL 35

task of building the Great Wall was a young
man from a southern province. At the ap-
proach of cool autumn days the fair Meng
Chiang Nli, his betrothed, left her peaceful
southern home to bring him a warm wadded
coat, the product of her summer's labor, to
shield him from the northern blasts. After
toiling many a dusty mile, she reached the
Great Wall only to learn that he with many
others had fallen under the pressure of the
work and for a burial had been built into
the Wall itself. Despairing and disconso-
late, she prayed unto the gods. In a dream
she was told to walk along the top of the
Wall to the west. WThile obeying the injunc-
tion, she could not keep from biting her
finger-tips in her agony. Suddenly a large
section of the Wall fell flat, and where the
blood touched her lover's bones, it was in-
stantly absorbed. In frantic joy at the re-
sponse, she wrapped them tenderly in the
wadded coat. But word had gone to the em-
peror that a great breach had been made in
his Wall by a woman. Exceedingly incensed,
the tyrant ordered her to come before him.
On seeing her, he was so smitten by her sur-
passing loveliness and her pathetic tale that,
without delay, he made overtures for her to
become his queen. She consented only on
three conditions: First, he must dispose of
the other wives in his harem; secondly, he
must allow her former lover a grand funeral ;

36 STRANGE SIBERIA

and, thirdly, she herself must superintend
the funeral ceremonies.

So infatuated was he that he readily
agreed to all the terms proposed. A hand-
somely wrought girdle of imperial gold was
presented her, while she made ready for the
funeral. With heart weighed down by sad-
ness, she bore her heavy load to the top of a
beetling cliff projecting into the sea and, to
the astonishment of all, leaped with her
burden into the waters. To-day on that
spot stands an island, to which the Chinese
point in proof of the legend, and a few
leagues inland, on a lonely eminence, is a
temple protecting a mute, girlish figure with
eyes turned toward the sacred place, where
rest all the mortal remains of herself and
her lover.

Pastor Virtue

We appreciated the great privilege of
spending our last night in China at Shan-
haikuan in the neat, happy home of Pastor
Te (Virtue). Upon his head the Boxers
had placed a reward of a hundred silver
taels, but the Almighty graciously and mar-
velously spared the useful life of his servant.
Once he foiled his pursuers by sleeping in
an empty coffin, and another time by hiding,
like Elijah, in a cave on the mountainside,
where food was stealthily furnished him by
a faithful Christian. We were most hos-

Pastor Tk

THE GREAT WALL 37

pitably entertained, and enjoyed looking at
his collection of curious clocks, ticking va-
rious times in happy discord. Geil, the inde-
fatigable "Yankee on the Yangtse," started
the previous winter on his circuitous trail
along the Great Wall from this same hospi-
table hospice.

CHAPTER V

Mukden

Mukden ranks not only with the signal military
defeats of history, but with the disasters. Not
only was Kirin, two hundred miles in the rear,
stricken with panic, but an exodus from Harbin
to Siberia, and from Vladivostok took place. The
Grand Army might be likened in its dejection to
the vanquished armies of Napoleon, because utter
defeat was something that, to both of them, had
been an impossibility. — The Tragedy of Russia,
Frederick McCormick.

Imperial Railways of North China

After an early breakfast at Shanhaikuan,
we left on the eight o'clock train of the Im-
perial Railways of North China, reaching
Mukden on time at 6 :35 p. m. This railway
had one through train a week from Peking
to Mukden. According to statistics, it
cleared 4,000,000 yen, net, in 1908. A part
of this profit has been expended on building
the Peking-Kalgan Air Line, to which refer-
ence has already been made.

The gauge of this Chinese Railway, like
the standard American and European, is
four feet eight and one half inches, and that
of the Trans-Siberian is five feet, while the
Japanese gauge is three feet six inches.1

1 Wm. Barclay Parsons, An American Engineer in
China, pp. 280, 281.

38

Chinese Soldiers, Saluting on Railroad Station,
in Manchuria

Trilingual Railway Sign in Manchuria

MUKDEN 39

At every station the railway police and
soldiers were lined up to salute a high mili-
tary mandarin named Chang, who was
traveling in a private car attached to our
train. The names of the stations were dis-
played on signposts in three languages —
Russian on one side, English on the other,
while Chinese occupied the middle position
on the post itself, as if wedging the two
others aside. Is this a mere play of chance
or a happy omen?

Russia and Manchuria

In ancient times Scythia occupied the
place which Russia now takes in our geog-
raphies. Herodotus tells how, in those
early days, the Scythians, by retreating
farther into their wild fastnesses, brought
disaster upon Darius and his advancing
hosts. Centuries later, the Russians, under
Rostopchin, adopted the same policy against
Napoleon and his invading army. By
burning Moscow, destroying provisions, and
deserting the city, they thwarted his genius,
humiliated his pride, and hastened his down-
fall. Now, as we look at the recent steady
retreat of the Russian army in Manchuria,
is it possible that the Russians are again
practicing these same tactics, by which in
the long run they will profit in like manner?
Or will the Chinese — persistent, peaceful,
and prolific — regain their ancestral do-

40 STRANGE SIBERIA

mains ? Many maintain that ultimately Rus-
sian, Japanese, and all other invaders will
be banished from Manchuria, and that it is
only a matter of time before awakened
China will assert herself and come again
to her own.1

Port Arthur

The previous October, a memorable trip to
Port Arthur — the present southern terminus
of the South Manchuria Railway controlled
by Japanese — had given us an insight into
Japanese rule on the mainland of Asia.
This railway proceeds via Dalny and Muk-
den northward to Kuan Ch'6ng-tze, its junc-
tion with the Russian branch line south of
Harbin.

At the time of our visit Port Arthur, once
crowded with Russians, had only a single
Muscovite living in the city. He was appar-
ently left stranded there, for his residence,
as printed on his carte de visite, was in the
Pristan quarter of Harbin. The sight of a
lone Chinaman strolling along a street in
classic Rome so stirred the poetic genius of
Goethe, that he wrote that gem of a poem en-
titled, "Der Chinese in Rom." Who knows
but that before many days the long-awaited

1 The Coming Struggle in Eastern Asia, by B. L. Put-
nam-Weale, p. 6. Greater Russia, by William Oliver
Greener, p. 209. Russia, Her Strength and Weakness,
by Wolf von Sehierbrand, pp. 31, 32. The Tragedy of
Russia in Pacific Asia, by Frederick McCormick, vol. i,
p. 9.

MUKDEN 41

American poet, in his "Wanderlust," may
chance to see this lone Russian at this Japa-
nese garrison city, "Whence all but him had
fled," and be inspired to indite at least a
few lines of his forthcoming immortal epic,
to "A Russian in Port Arthur" ?

The Japanese railway hotels were well
managed and provided good accommoda-
tion and excellent food. Whether at Port
Arthur, Dalny, or Kuan Ch'6ng-tze, all these
hotels have the same name, Yamoto, like the
popular Astor House, for there is an aris-
tocratic Astor House in the Chinese cities
of Shanghai, Hankow, and Tientsin, as well
as downtown New York.

The toilsome climb up and over the fiercely
contested 203 Meter Hill well repaid our
exertion. Delightful also was the carriage
ride over the winding macadamized road up
the central mountain, from which we ob-
tained a comprehensive survey of this ex-
tensive battlefield and the land-locked har-
bor below. On its summit the Japanese were
erecting a magnificent monument to com-
memorate their victory. In architectural
beauty it far excels the Bunker Hill Monu-
ment at Boston, and rivals the famed Wal-
halla at Ratisbon.

Up the river valley was the Russian ceme-
tery, marking a greater victory than that of
203 Meter Hill. It tells a magnanimity un-
dreamed of even by Christian nations. The

42 STRANGE SIBERIA

Japanese had collected the decaying bodies
of their fallen foes, given them an honorable
burial, and then erected a handsome granite
monument amid a forest of tombstones and
iron double crosses of the Russian-Greek
Church. On the day of dedication, by in-
vitation of the Japanese authorities, the
Greek patriarch of Peking, with his acolytes
and the surviving Russian military officials
from Vladivostok, Harbin, and other acces-
sible posts, assembled with Admiral Togo
and other high Japanese victors, to conse-
crate this "God's Acre." Side by side, friend
and foe mounted the pedestal and placed
wreaths to the memory of the conquered
slain. This deed cost the Japanese some
50,000 yen, but it gained for them the
amazed admiration of the world. The
Museum, which contained various war tro-
phies and miniature raised models of forts
before and after the famous siege, enables
the lay visitor to understand how even elec-
trified barbed wires and intrenched bastions
were as a child's sand-pile before modern
improved weapons. Through the courtesy
of a Japanese naval officer, we were granted
a permit to ride in a Japanese sampan
around the inner harbor and out through
the narrow, fortified straits into the open
ocean beyond, where we watched divers, en-
cased in their strange uniform, bringing up
relics from the sunken Russian battleships.

MUKDEN 43

On our way back five Japanese torpedo-boat
destroyers, with flags flying and whistles
shrieking, shot past us on their arrowy flight
toward the horizon.

The Asiatic Armageddon

At Mukden the second story of Dr. Chris-
tie's well-known hospital affords an exten-
sive view of the battlefield. This beloved
physician, who was an eyewitness of the
conflict, pointed out to us that particular
part which was alternately eight different
times in the possession of Russians and
Japanese. Mukden well deserves a visit.
The massive walls of the city, resembling
those of Peking, inclose the Imperial Palace,
with its choice treasures and noted library.
Let Miss Wright, one of the few who have
recently inspected its interior, describe it
for us:

"Last year the empress-dowager herself
had planned to visit this ancient capital of
her forefathers. A great clearing and re-
building and a flood of vermilion lacquer
followed this vaguely expressed wish — and
then the empress died.

"But the old palaces which she was to
have occupied have been rescued from ruin,
and their lovely grace and brightness give
delight to the few who chance to visit them.
This glowing group of red and gold and
royal yellow lies in the heart of Mukden.

44 STRANGE SIBERIA

They are not palaces as we know them, but
low, single-storied buildings, with beautiful
straight beams and curling eaves, suggesting
and probably copied from the ancient Tartar
tents.

"Behind these fragile lacquered walls is
hidden an untold wealth of treasure, the
sacking of which was so feared by the Chi-
nese that they brought their war with Japan
to a halt. There was a great unbolting and
unlocking of the red doors, and a tearing
away of absurd paper seals, before we could
gain admittance, two soldiers, with bayonets
fixed, standing meanwhile by our sides.

"Treasure after treasure, endlessly wrapped
and packed with little papers of camphor,
was placed for a moment for inspection on
a sort of yellow lacquer counter. Golden
helmets, ruby-set and sapphire-starred, royal
coats of yellow satin, embroidered solidly in
seed pearls, daggers with diamond hilts,
priceless kakemonos, painted by China's
greatest artists, and others painted with a
needle cunning as a brush — all these things,
and many others, were shown us in this tem-
ple storehouse, piled to the eaves with cabi-
nets and boxes.

"We walked at last out of that cold, dim
treasure-house into the court, full of melt-
ing snow and blinding sunlight, and across
it into the audience chamber, where that
audacious, ivory-colored, paint-enameled

MUKDEN 45

Manchu princess had meant to hold her
court. It was dark as we stepped in from
the dazzling light, but full of the gleam of
gold — eaves gold, walls gold, and in the
center of the room a raised and canopied
dais. On this, before a monstrous screen,
stood the throne — a giant's chair of gleam-
ing old-gold lacquer, a deep shining seat,
smooth as a mirror, wide enough and deep
enough to seat three men — a royal, five-
clawed dragon rampant on arms and back.

"The whole chamber was carpeted with
a thick and brilliant rug of royal yellow,
and this yellow, newly laid, and newly woven
tapestry, was covered inch-deep with the
dust and dirt of months — feathers, broken
birds' nests, bits of earth ; and as we looked
in amazement we heard a stir and move-
ment above our heads, where amid the
golden eaves the fowls of the air were nest-
ing unmolested.

"We followed our guide into the gloom
and deathlike chill of still another wonder-
house, and paused on the threshold in amaze-
ment. The place was lined with cabinets
and shelves, and there, row on row, piled and
stacked, was an array of imperial porcelains,
each bit a fortune in itself; bowls and basins
and vases of matchless 'blue and white,'
ginger-jars with lovely plum pattern, clear
white with rich blue medallions, curious old
vases of Persian blue — form and pattern Per-

46 STRANGE SIBERIA

sian — plain blue and 'powder blue.' There
they stood, great toppling columns of them
— rice-bowls, tea-bowls, ordinary vessels of
everyday use, cast, as it were, in gold, and
piled as unconcernedly as crockery bought
by the ton.

"One end of the room was packed in yel-
low— rice-bowls, soup-basins, tiny sam-shui
cups, frail as eggshell, piled by the dozens,
or hundreds, rather; the pure undecorated
royal yellow, half mustard, half canary, with
the imperial dragon swimming beneath the
glaze.

"There were big vases of a glistening
bronze, of swelling and perfect proportions,
with iridescent gleams of flame and peacock
green, dim and drowning. There were others
of sea-green, of a pure and delicate wash ;
others again pale blue, the very ghost of a
summer's sky, with outlines simple and
demure. One's fingers itched for the feel of
them, the sliding surface and the satisfying
shape. There were gourdlike vases running
through every tone of purple and thick
brown, and ending in petunia and amethyst
and rose. There were scores of deep cream
pieces, and biscuit boldly crackled. There
were vases black as night and glossy ; famille
verte, in pairs, with handles and quaint deco-
rations, each color distinct and pure.

"We found four shelves of precious 'peach-
blow' — slender little vases, identical in form,

MUKDEN 47

some placid and perfect peach, some a trifle
pale, others ruddy, but all of the surface of
satin and without a flaw. There were thirty
in the group, a common sisterhood, doubtless
of one firing, and probably akin to the
'peach-blow' in the 'Walters' collection, iden-
tical as it is in shape and color. On another
shelf were as many little 'peach-blow' boxes,
varying as a flame varies in tone and inten-
sity.

"Above was another room, crowded as
that below. More 'blue and white,' some
wondrous sang de bceuf, pulsing, throbbing
tones, red and thick as blood-clots. On the
same shelf stood a pair of vases of greenish-
blue, with a glaze brilliant as enamel, and
crushed into it a warm fawn-color, like a
turquoise matrix, mixed and melted. Hun-
dreds of bowls again of dazzling white, thin
and exquisite, each piece with the clear
chime of a bell — rice-bowls, winecups, tea-
bowls, fish-bowls, 'apple-green' this time, the
royal dragon sprawling round the brim half
smothered in the paste, and so it went.

"Finally, we dragged ourselves away, out
again into the dazzle of the snow and the
bold blue sky, and faced once more those
amazing dwellings of vermilion lacquer.

"What was the sum of it all? It made
one pause and consider. A race that can
think in such fearless, fundamental colors,
without fuss or futile decoration. And one

48 STRANGE SIBERIA

sees this legend repeated again and again on
every side, in the hard enduring things of
stone, the blunt monoliths, the time-serving
tortoise, every symbol of the land pointing
alike to fundamental, enduring things —
patience, labor, discrimination. This cha-
otic, inchoate, centuries-old China — what is
the meaning of it all? It is a thing to make
one think, to think mightily, and to think
again."1

A few miles outside the city lie the Im-
perial Tombs, spared by both Russian and
Japanese foes from desecration at the pa-
thetic plea of China.

The railway between Mukden and Antung,
on the border of Korea, has long been a bone
of contention between China and Japan.
The Japanese by diplomatic pressure have
forced China to grant them the right to
change the present narrow gauge to a broad,
and also to allow Japan to station her
soldiers and build barracks at frequent in-
tervals along the line. To-day Japan has
two lines of railway in Manchuria, one from
Port Arthur and the other from the border
of Korea, both converging at Mukden and
proceeding northward, as one trunk line, to
Kuan-Ch'&ng-tze, south of Harbin.

At Mukden it was a delight to us, Ameri-
cans, to board an American-built Pullman,

iThe Color of Mukden, by Elizabeth Washburn
Wright, In The Atlantic Monthly, February, 1910, pp.
242-244.

MUKDEN 49

which had painted on the outside in English,
" Sleeping Car," and to ride far out upon
these prairies, so recently the seat of war,
with the same facilities of modern, luxurious
travel as at home.

Policy of Russians and Japanese

The large, solid stone and brick railway
stations and barracks along the Japanese
and Russian railway lines throughout Man-
churia indicates that both these aggressive
nations have come into Manchuria to stay.
The proposed conference of M. Kokovsto,
the Russian Minister of Finance, with
Prince Ito, of Japan, on October 26, 1909, at
Harbin, resulting in the latter's assassina-
tion, as he alighted from the train there, in-
dicates to any intelligent observer the overt,
concerted attempt on the part of these two
empires to act unitedly in grasping and hold-
ing this valuable Manchurian territory, ut-
terly regardless of helpless China and in
defiance of the "open door," promised and
guaranteed in the Portsmouth Treaty.

Hunghutze-Hobgoblin

The Japanese and Russian guards have
been appreciably increased on account of
the bugbear, "Hunghutze" (literally, "Red
Beards"). By reiterated sensational dis-
patches from Manchuria many readily be-
lieve what Count Vay de Vaya wrote to the

50 STRANGE SIBERIA

Revue des Deux Mondes: "Of all these ma-
rauders, the Hunghutzes are the most ter-
rible. They form a body of men, more or less
organized, like the Italian brigands of old
times, and this band resembles the Sicilian
Mafia in the extent of its influence." Fred-
erick McCormick, from personal observation,
flatly denies these rumors so assiduously
disseminated. He says : "The Russians from
the first made much of the Hunghutze, no
doubt largely because it was the fruitful ma-
terial of which were fabricated political
arguments for the continual occupation of
Manchuria, and because they furnished the
excuse for military exploits to gain decora-
tions and military distinction. In eighteen
months of continuous riding alone in the
theater of war, in the rear and on the flanks
of the Russian army, through the lines, as
well as around the lines in the so-called
Hunghutze country, on the borders of Mon-
golia, I never saw a Hunghutze, nor did I
ever meet with any Chinese who had them-
selves seen any or knew where any were,
except such Chinese as were in the service
of the Russian or Japanese army."1 From
these statements one may judge for himself
as to the reality of the Hunghutze scare.

1 The Tragedy of Russia in Pacific Asia, by Fred-
erick McCormick, vol. ii, pp. 346 and 348.

CHAPTER VI
Harbin

"In order to suppress the insolence of certain
scoundrels [that is, Russians] who cross the
frontier to hunt, plunder, and kill, and who give
rise to much trouble and disturbance; to determine
clearly and distinctly the boundaries between the
empires of China and Russia; and, lastly, to re-
establish peace and good understanding for the
future, the following articles are by mutual con-
sent agreed upon."

Chinese preamble to the first treaty with Russia,
at Nerchinsk, August 27, 1689, when in the pres-
ence of 1,500 Chinese soldiers, and some 10,000
Chinese servants, retainers, and camp-followers,
Russia relinquished territory which she had
already occupied. — Alexis Krause, Russia in Asia,
pp. 40, 41.

On to Harbin

Our refreshing night's rest in the luxuri-
ous Pullman — reminder of the homeland —
was rudely broken by our arrival at Kuan-
Ch'£ng-tze at 5 a. m. Here we had to leave
the Japanese train and travel one hundred
and seventy miles further on a branch line
under Russian management. Forced absti-
nence on a bitter cold morning, and dirty,
discarded railway equipment, did not pro-
duce the most pleasant experience on our
overland journey. Still, we could obtain hot

51

52 STRANGE SIBERIA

water suitable for drinking, and, as we
looked out of our car windows over these
broad, fertile prairies, the real reason why
Russians and Japanese coveted this vast,
rich territory was quite apparent. Neither
of these world-powers has any intention of
letting go its hold, unless par force ma-
jeure, as at the close of the Spanish-Ameri-
can War the Spanish Treaty plenipoten-
tiaries, with reluctant hauteur, avowed was
their compelling motive when they had to
sign the Treaty of Paris, by which Cuba,
Porto Rico, and the Philippines slipped out
of their hands.

On Saturday, at 3 p. mv this slow, jerky
train of antiquated, unswept, and undusted
Russian cars arrived at Harbin. We re-
mained there a couple of days, seeing the
strange sights.

Geography from a Chinese Viewpoint

So, at last, here we were at the noted and
notorious city of Harbin. About a year
previous we had met a Chinaman who in-
sisted that Harbin was in America. This
happened when we were taking our noonday
rest in a small village en route to a pic-
turesque hamlet perched in the mountains
of Mongolia, a day's ride by mulecart north
of the Great Wall. Seeing a Chinaman
strolling in the inn court, we accosted him.
After the customary inquiries as to one's

HARBIN 53

honorable country, worthy surname, and re-
spectable age had been asked and answered,
to make conversation, we ventured to ask
him whether he had ever been in America.
With beaming face and an air of compla-
cency he replied, "Yes!" We inquired in
what part. Imagine our surprise when he
answered, "Hah-er-been," which is Chinese
for Harbin. We tried to explain that Har-
bin was not in America, but, although many
foreigners lived there, was in Manchuria.
A look of injured innocence came over his
face, as, pointing to my Panama, he pertly
retorted, "But the foreigners there wear the
same kind of hat that you have on," and he
went away sorrowful, for he had great
prepossessions.

Migration

Hundreds and thousands of Chinese pass
every year from China into Manchuria in
the early spring and many return before
Chinese New Year. Some days they seemed
a never-ending stream. Their migrations
north and south are as regular as the flocks
of wild geese and ducks overhead. The Im-
perial Railways of North China make an
especially low rate for a through train from
a station near Tientsin to Mukden, while
the steamship companies carry thousands
more, at reduced rates, from the northern
ports of Shantung province.

54 STRANGE SIBERIA

In rapidity of growth Harbin resembles
many an American city in the West. In
1897 two Eussians rode into the place and
camped on the open prairie. Now the popu-
lation numbers some 80,000. Through this
gateway, during the Russian-Japanese war,
passed more than 1,000,000 of the Tsar's
soldiery and 250,000 horses. Harbin is a
triple city, formed of the new Russian city,
extending east of the mammoth railway sta-
tion, Pristan or the old riverine town, along
the banks of the Sungari, and Chinatown
at the north.

Hotel

A couple of droskies soon conveyed us
and our baggage to the Grand Hotel, diag-
onally opposite the station. Here we were
shown a good-sized, comfortably furnished
front room. A placard on the wall stated
in parallel columns in Russian, English,
German, and French languages the tariff
of the room, and also a list of extras with
fixed prices attached, as, for instance: The
use of a towel was 15 kopeks (7£ cents
United States gold) ; the use of a pillow-case
was 20 kopeks (10 cents United States
gold) ; the use of a sheet was 20 kopeks (10
cents United States gold) ; a candle was 20,
kopeks (10 cents United States gold) ; a
piece of soap was 40 kopeks (20 cents United
States gold) ; the use of a bathtub was 1

HARBIN 55

ruble (50 cents United States gold). As we
were not provided with a linen chest, we
hired toilet necessities, so that the entire
charge for our room was 5.50 rubles ($2.75
(United States gold) a day. Food was extra.
In the dining room the bill of fare was
printed in Russian and French. This official
price list does not always protect the trav-
eler. At one hotel, the porter rushed ahead
and raised the rate. Tiffin, or luncheon,
costing one ruble, consisted of excellent
soup, boiled meat with rice, quail on toast,
with cranberry sauce, and Italian cream,
followed by a dainty cup of superior cafe
noir. A supper which we took a la carte
consisted of juicy beefsteak, thoroughly
cooked French fried potatoes, hot string
beans covered with cream sauce, and
glasses (not cups) of delicious, piping hot
tea. We sipped it clear and also a la Russe,
with lemon and cube sugar. After supper
we were invited by the hotel manager to
see a moving-picture show to be given in the
dining saloon at nine o'clock. This we de-
clined with thanks on account of being fa-
tigued from our journey. Such nocturnal
entertainments, accompanied with dancing
and carousing, are in vogue in hotels in
Siberia. Our rooms here and later at Tomsk
were, fortunately, in another part of the
hotel, so that we were not disturbed by such
midnight revelry.

56 STRANGE SIBERIA

Money Matters

At the American Consulate we learned
that Consul Greene had recently started
home on furlough, but the obliging inter-
preter, Mr. Morton, gave us useful informa-
tion and personally conducted us to various
places of interest. One was to the large de-
partment store of Churin & Co., where we
invested in tins of American Saint Charles
Cream and oranges. Another was across
the Sungari River, in the popular Kitais-
kaya, or "Chinese Street," to a dealer in
photographic materials, where we purchased
rolls of twelve films for our Bull's-Eye
Kodak at 1.90 ruble each, about 95 cents
United States gold, which was about what
we would pay at Tientsin.

Ascending the broad, main street, running
opposite the railway station, the visitor
passes many of the finest buildings of the
city, and on the summit comes upon the
handsome, new Greek church, unusually
light and airy in its architecture. In this
neighborhood are many elegant mansions
and large, attractive shops, fronted by broad
sidewalks and rows of shade trees. A little
nearer the station stands the substantial
Russo-China Bank, where we found courte-
ous and prompt attention. It is a significant
coincidence that at the time this Russo-China
Bank was established to finance the Russian

HARBIN 57

railway through Manchuria, called "The
Chinese Eastern Railway," Baron Hirsch-
man is supposed to have been instrumental
in inducing Wall Street to invest $50,000,-
000 in Russian bonds.1 In this bank Eng-
lish and German, as well as Russian, were
spoken. High up on a narrow gallery, built
above the huge safe, was a Russian soldier,
armed cap-a-pie. From his ammunition belt
protruded revolvers, and he carried a loaded
rifle as, with heavy tread, he paced to and
fro. The rugged sturdiness in the make-up
of this minion of the Tsar impressed the
beholder as an interesting contrast to a
similar scene away off in Italy. There, dur-
ing the annual Requiem to the memory of
Victor Emmanuel in Rome, a half dozen
handsomely accoutered Italian soldiers,
dressed in gay uniforms and with plumed
helmets, are detailed to keep guard and
stride with muffled step back and forth high
up on the circular, interior gallery of the
Pantheon.

Our observations, however, confirm us in
the belief that, if the occasion should arise,
those Italian patriots, fired with the spirit
of Garibaldi, would give as good an account
of themselves as any Russian hireling.
Years ago at Vladivostok an incident, illus-
trative of the insensate obedience of the
Russian soldiery, occurred. The occasion

1 Greater Russia, by William Oliver Greener, p. 246.

58 STRANGE SIBERIA

was the military parade on the national
festival of the Tsar's Name Day. The troops
were drawn up with military precision. To-
ward the close of the drill, champagne, foam-
ing in glass goblets, was served to groups of
officers gathered in front of the troops.
While this was being quaffed off in patriotic
hilarity, not even a drop of vodka moistened
the parched throats of the rank and file. To
them the command was given to hurrah for
the "Tsar of all the Russias." "Hark from
the tombs a doleful sound !" Such a hoarse,
heartless shout rent the air that to this
day its sepulchral reverberations keep ring-
ing in our ears. Appalling, indeed, is the
present status of the Russian army, if the
revelations of Kuropatkin, suppressed by
the Russian government, be true: "Belief in
God, devotion to the Tsar, love of the
Fatherland are the features which up to
now . . . made the mass of the soldiers fear-
less and obedient, but those principles have
latterly been much shaken among the people,
and the result was, of course, felt in the
army.

»i

Pristan

In Pristan stands the large Greek church,
Saint Sophia, conspicuous and imposing.
A Russian priest, the Rev. Bagdanoff, to

1 The Russian Army and the Japanese War, by Kuro-
patkin, vol. i, p. 296.

HARBIN 59

whom Mr. Turley, agent of the British and
Foreign Bible Society at Mukden, had given
us his card of introduction, kindly showed
us the objects of interest in the sacred
edifice. Most worthy of inspection were
three handsome oil paintings, in whose backs
were inserted brass plates, inscribed as spe-
cial gifts blessed by the high ecclesiastics of
the cities of Constantinople, Kiev, and Old
Novgorod. These cities possess older and
more celebrated Saint Sophia cathedrals,
though that at Constantinople is still in the
hands of the infidels. One very large paint-
ing vividly represented the historic incident
of the wholesale baptisms in the Dnieper
near Kiev, when Christianity was introduced
into Russia in 988. Great was the excite-
ment when the idols were overthrown amid
the tears and fright of the people. Perum,
the favorite idol, whose head was of silver
and beard of gold, was thrown into the
river from the "Devil's Leap," a spot still
shown to visitors. Rambaud relates how,
"by Vladimir's order, all the Kievans — men
and women, masters and slaves, old people
and little children — plunged naked into the
consecrated waters of the old pagan stream,
while the Greek priests, standing on the
bank, read the baptismal service."1

Later, riding toward the banks of the
Sungari, we made our way through streets

1 History of Russia, by Rambaud, vol. i, p. 80.

60 STRANGE SIBERIA

on each side of which were numerous flour
mills and yards inclosing immense piles of
merchandise, such as timber, coal, and sacks
of flour. Along the wharves were stern-
wheel steamers, like those plying on the Ohio
and Orinoco Rivers in America, crammed
full of passengers and freight, about ready
to start for ports on the Sungari and Amur
Rivers. Putnam-Weale states that "from
the flour mills at Harbin, Tsitsihar, and
Kirin Provinces, so far as flour is concerned,
sufficient was locally available to feed every
Russian soldier, east of Lake Baikal, on the
day peace was signed."

On the broad, frequented avenues our
attention was attracted to a prevailing fash-
ion : when a man and woman were out rid-
ing together in a drosky, the man evinced
his eagerness to prevent his lady from falling
out by firmly encircling her waist with his
protecting arm. Many women were briskly
promenading the streets in high-heeled white
slippers, regardless of the late spring or
whether the rest of their attire harmonized
with this ballroom costume or not.

Chinatown

The Chinese city of Harbin lies more than
a couple of miles distant from the Russian
settlement. We took a short cut across a
long meadow to it and hunted for a Protes-
tant church. First, we were directed to a

HARBIN 61

small Roman Catholic chapel, then to a
Chinese government lecture hall, and finally
1o the "Gospel Hall," where we learned that
preaching had been started about a year pre-
vious by a British missionary, whose Chi-
nese name was Pi, and that the present mem-
bership was about thirty. This Chinese part
of Harbin, with its yamens, temples, shops,
and street life, looked like an ordinary Chi-
nese town bodily transplanted into the midst
of these modern European surroundings.
The drosky-driver whom we employed on
our way back happened to be a Chinaman,
and seemed happy to have as passengers
those who had come from the Middle King-
dom and could converse in his native tongue.

CHAPTER VII

Across Manchuria

Railroad iron is a magician's rod in its power
to evoke the slumbering energies of land and
water. — R. W. Emerson.

Russia's Real Navy

Russia's Premier "De Witte long ago
realized that in a land-locked empire, such
as Russia, the railway locomotive must take
the place of the ship as pioneer of national
development. What Great Britain and Ger-
many had gained by steamship lines Rus-
sia must attain by railways. ... He demon-
strated that a continent can be made an
accessible highway, as any ocean, and he
showed that Russia's real navy rests not on
the sea but on many parallel lines of steel
rails, laid down with scientific accuracy and
strategic intent."1

The Trans-Siberian Railway

The present Tsar, Nicholas II, when he
was Tsarevitch, laid the first stone of this
greatest transcontinental railway on the
globe at Vladivostok, on May 12, 1891. Its
original cost was more than f390,000,000
(United States gold), and its annual aver-

1 To-morrow in the East, by Robert Story, p. 233.
62

ACROSS MANCHURIA 63

age maintenance amounts to nearly $25,000,-
000. The railway is divided into sections of
one verst (about two thirds of a mile),
marked by a neat guardhouse, where the
guard, whose duty it is to see that the track
is in good order, lives with his family. At
heavy curves, additional guards are sta-
tioned. Between Tomsk and the Urals there
are nearly four thousand of these. There
grew to be a certain fascination in watch-
ing for these little homes and the man, or
sometimes the woman, standing, flag in
hand, near the doorstep or alongside the
track.

During the Kusso-Japanese war, Prince
Khilkoff, Minister of Ways and Communica-
tions, had personal oversight of the railway
management, with his headquarters at
Irkutsk. His apprenticeship in the railway
business in America proved of inestimable
value at that critical period. Under his
direction, innumerable sidings and new sta-
tions were speedily provided, enabling the
railway to transport troops and material so
regularly and rapidly as to astonish the
world. So efficiently did he manage his diffi-
cult task that after the war he was highly
honored by his government.

Villari tells how on one occasion, while
inspecting a section of the main line, where
he had ordered a new station to be built, he
inquired why his train did not stop there.

64 STRANGE SIBERIA

"O! your Excellency," the officials replied,
"we passed it in the night." Not satisfied
with the reply, since it did not tally with his
schedule, he gave orders for his inspection
train to return to the spot. No station was
visible. The feelings of those officials can
be better imagined than described. Suffice
it to say that not many days elapsed before
that station materialized.

As late as 1880 Russia had no railways in
Asia, although Great Britain had nearly
10,000 miles of iron road in India.

Express Trains

To-day trains run daily between the
Pacific and the Urals. Each week three ex-
press trains go each way between Vladivo-
stok and the old and new Russian capitals,
while a fourth runs between Irkutsk and
Moscow. These three expresses include one
of the International Wagons Lits and two
of the Imperial Siberian Express. So far
as our observation went, the Wagons Lits
trains had the advantage of a conductor
who could speak some English, German, and
French, besides Russian; the fares were
higher, the cars were usually more crowded,
and their condition in regard to cleanliness
would have given a New England housewife
a conniption fit. Doubtless, as soon as the
attention of the company is called to this
untidy state of affairs, it will be promptly

ACROSS MANCHURIA 65

remedied. We well remember in the early
days of the Canadian Pacific Steamship
Company, how hash, disguised as "Pepper
Pot," "Bubble and Squeak," and other mys-
tic, euphonious names, were frequent dishes
on the menu. But after complaints reached
the London office, a director was dispatched
personally to investigate, with the result
that to-day probably no better table is to
be found anywhere.

On the other hand, the Imperial State
Express had the advantage of the same
speed, lower rates, a conductor who could
speak German, French, and Russian, while
the cars were both cleaner and less crowded.
Passengers, first and second-class, in both
expresses, had the right to the same dining
car. Generally, the same car was provided
with coupe's, partly first and partly second-
class. A corridor or passageway extended
along one side of the car. Overhead in this
corridor were racks for baggage, while near
the windows were adjustable seats and
tables.

We tried a second-class compartment on
the Imperial State Express and found it so
comfortable and satisfactory that we had no
desire to change to the first. The fare,
second-class from Harbin to Samara on the
Volga, was 77.85 rubles, the ticket being
valid for forty days. On our way from Har-
bin to Irkutsk, and also from Taiga to Sa-

66 STRANGE SIBERIA

mara, although we had only two tickets, we
were allowed a whole section to ourselves.
This afforded us more room and greater pri-
vacy than usual on American Pullmans, since
we could securely fasten the door on the
inside. This coupe" had two upper and two
lower berths, besides a double row of racks
on each side for baggage. We occupied the
two lower berths and so had an abundance
of room. The ornamental top of a folding
stepl adder before our window formed a
table, upon which a green-shaded electric
reading lamp was placed at night. Another
bulb overhead illumined the room. Electric
buttons near the door brought the car porter
or the waiter from the dining car, as we
might desire.

The first-class coupe" differs from ours in
being furnished with only two berths, and
in having a strip of carpet on the floor, while
ours had matting.

The dining car was fancifully decorated
with real and artificial flowers, and provided
at the farther end with a piano. Beyond
this, at the corner of the car near the roof,
was an icon, or small sacred painting. Like
all icons, the drapery of the clothing and
the halo around the heads of the Madonna
and Child were stamped upon a bright, me-
tallic, gilt and silver casing, concealing all
the rest of the picture, except the flesh tints
of the face and handle. Every orthodox Rus-

ACROSS MANCHURIA 67

sian, on entering, would first reverently face
this object of devotion and cross himself be-
fore sitting down at table and ordering his
meal. The cuisine was excellent, although
at times a Russian flavor predominated.
Still we could procure a good tiffin of four
courses for 1.25 ruble, or of three courses
for only 1 ruble. A sample tiffin of four
courses consisted of (1) Soup — Noodle or
Chicken, (2) Fish, (3) Roast Veal, with Po-
tatoes and String Beans, (4) Dessert, con-
sisting of Ice Cream and after-dinner Coffee,
served in hexagonal glass tumblers.

Surely no epicure ought to grumble when
a plump, toothsome partridge, cooked to a
turn, could be bought for 75 kopeks, or about
40 cents, gold. Some British travelers, ad-
dicted to afternoon tea, advised us to order
hot water sent to our compartment and
there brew our own tea. But we preferred
a change of scene and would take our tea in
Russian style in the dining car. One glass
of hot tea — and Russians and Chinese of all
peoples know how to brew it — and a couple
of pieces of zwieback cost 10 cents, Ameri-
can currency — not a very extravagant charge
for this afternoon refreshment.

The measured movements of these Rus-
sian express trains remind one of the camel,
which for ages used to traverse these inter-
minable wildernesses. Never do they deign
to start like a thoroughbred on the instant

68 STRANGE SIBERIA

the signal is given. Rather, grunting like
a patient camel, they only begin to move
after three distinct actions, similar to the
jerky opening of the blades of a jackknife,
reminding one of how first the camel rises
on its knees, then straightens its hind legs,
and finally its front ones.

Usually, the train stops twenty minutes
at stations. This affords plenty of time to
stroll up and down the platform and see the
unusual sights, especially of humanity —
men and women, boys and girls, Buriats,
Mongols, Vitim gold-diggers, Altai miners,
Russian immigrants, and Siberian settlers,
not to mention our fellow travelers from the
four corners of the world.

Russian Paternalism

At all important stations, a Russian sign,
"Keep-a-tok," meaning "boiling water," was
visible, indicating that boiling-hot water
could be obtained there gratis by simply
turning the brass faucet. This1 was provided
by the government chiefly for immigrants,
as were also booths at one end of the long
platforms, where provisions, such as bread,
eggs, vegetables, and fruit, were for sale at
low rates. Never tiresome and always pic-
turesque was the sight of the rows of
quaintly attired peasants, offering for sale
huge loaves of black bread and bottles of
fresh milk. The cheap prices were fixed by

ACROSS MANCHURIA 69

governmental tariff, not yet affected by any
Milk Trust.

Travelers, first and second-class, could
purchase a finer grade of provisions at
higher prices in the railway restaurants.
For a few kopeks they could also procure
hot water, steaming and hissing from the
brightly polished brass samovar, unfailingly
adorning the counter.

Along some lines the Russian government
exhibits a paternal solicitude over its chil-
dren. Patent medicines, for instance, which
have wrought such havoc in America, are
not allowed to be sold to the Russian people
without the authorization of a physician.
One summer at Vladivostok our bedroom
was overrun with rats, and chancing to see
the American remedy "Rough on Rats" for
sale in a store, we asked the clerk for a pack-
age. To our surprise we were informed that
we could not buy any until we had first pro-
cured a physician's certificate.

How much happier would the Russian
people be to-day if this same paternal so-
licitude had been exercised in regard to
vodka! Vodka is a government monopoly.
Steadily this seething mass of ignorant,
downtrodden humanity is being over-
whelmed by the alcohol habit, fostered by
the government.

Von Schierbrand says, "One per cent of
the net returns from the sale of all alcoholic

70 STRANGE SIBERIA

liquors is being devoted by the Finance Min-
ister to promote the temperance move-
ment!"1 Such incongruity equals that of a
certain Sunday school scholar at a Brooklyn
Christmas entertainment, when we were boys.
This temporary scholar, hailing from Jack-
son Hollow, was an undersized youth of
sallow, shriveled features. Attracted to a
group of us boys, who were eagerly compar-
ing notes about our Christmas presents, he
exultingly interjected the remark, "My
father gave me a box of cigars for my Christ-
mas." Instantly he checked himself, as the
thought shot across his mind that tobacco-
smoking was usually tabooed in a Sunday
school, and hastily finished his sentence with,
"if I would not smoke." And this saying
of his has been current among us to the
present day. Von Schierbrand further
states that, "as far as statistics go, every
budget, since the introduction of the gov-
ernment monopoly, shows a rapidly increas-
ing sale of spirits, and for the last year the
excess of such sales over the figures of ten
years ago is fully thirty per cent." In 1009
Russia received from her revenue in intoxi-
cating liquors $275,000,000 — enough to pay
the cost of her army and navy.2

McCormick, who accompanied the Russian

1 Russia, Her Strength and Weakness, by Wolf von
Schierbrand, pp. 235, 236.

2 Northwestern Christian Advocate, September 14,
1910, p. 1162.

ACROSS MANCHURIA 71

Grand Ariny during the disastrous Man-
churian campaign, observes: "The Russian
physician's first inquiry in case of accident
was, 'Was he drunk?' On one occasion a
man was describing to a surgeon in charge
of an imperial hospital the actions of an
artillery officer in the last stages of exhaus-
tion from fighting during the battle of Muk-
den, and from the work of saving his battery
in the flight from Tieh-Ling. But the
tragedy of the incident was entirely lost on
the surgeon. As the narrator concluded he
simply asked, 'Was he drunk?'"1 Whole-
sale debauching a people for revenue may be
a phase of paternalism in the Russian sense,
but we far prefer the American right to cast
our votes for local option.

i The Tragedy of Russia, by Frederick McCormick, vol.
li, p. 281.

CHAPTER VIII

KlNG-AN AND GENGHIS KHAN

*0 t»v Spwv epws dploros. — "The love of mountains
is best." In those fine words some Swiss professor
anticipated the doctrine of Ruskin and the creed
of Leslie Stephen, and of all men who had found
mountains the best companions in the vicissitudes
of life. In the annals of art it would be easy to
find additional proof of the attention paid by men
to mountains, three or four hundred years ago.
The late Josiah Gilbert, in a charming but too
little known volume, Landscape in Art, has shown
how many great painters depict in their back-
grounds their native hills. Titian is the most
conspicuous example. — D. W. Freshfield, President
of the Geographical Society of the British Asso-
ciation.

Alpine Regions

Toward evening of the first day out from
Harbin, the air becomes perceptibly cooler.
Before long we leave the broad Manchnrian
prairies, so like the immense wheatfields of
Minnesota and the Dakotas. An extra en-
gine helps to pull the train up the steep
grades of the King-an Mountains, reported
to be the coldest spot of like latitude on
the globe. According to one account, the
mercury sometimes falls to seventy-one de-
grees below zero, Fahrenheit.1

1 Greater Russia, by William Oliver Greener, p. S6.
72

KING-AN AND GENGHIS KHAN 73

The flora here and also on the elevated
plateaus of Mongolia above Kalgan is Al-
pine. Vast areas on the plateaus above
Kalgan can be seen to-day white with the
edelweiss. Specimens of this Alpine favorite
were once sent to Oberlin College, Ohio, for
careful examination, and were pronounced
to be the real edelweiss, now so rare and
prized in the high latitudes of Switzerland,
where, on the border line, snow and ice con-
tend in a life-and-death struggle with the
flora of the temperate zone.

Genghis Khan

Before reaching those higher altitudes the
twin engines keep puffing and tugging in
their winding way around the grotesque foot-
hills and up the steep grades of the moun-
tainsides. Tschingis Chan is the name of
the station we are passing. We are startled,
for we learn that this is the equivalent of
the Russian name for Genghis Khan. Can
it be really true that we are near the birth-
place of this renowned conqueror?

Luridly flash before our vision the strange,
stirring scenes enacted here, when vast
hordes of uncouth nomads roamed at will
over these spacious Siberian steppes. At
the appointed time arose Genghis Khan.
His military genius united these multitu-
dinous warring tribes into one compact mass.
These loyal, reckless barbarians were eager

74 STRANGE SIBERIA

to follow their doughty chieftain across the
Urals and to combat savage Scythians or
any other forces rash enough to oppose their
onward, overwhelming onslaughts.

Genghis Khan, later succeeded by Tamer-
lane and the Golden Horde, first fought his
way westward, until all lands from the
Danube to the Pacific and from the Arctic
to the Himalayas owned his sway. His con-
quests were purely Oriental, and thus fall
into the lowest of the three categories men-
tioned by Fiske, namely, conquest without
incorporation, a grade lower than the
ancient Roman or modern Russian, but eons
distant from the highest class, the federa-
tion, prevailing in most modern world-
powers.1

This triumphing over apparently impas-
sable barriers, asi Genghis Khan did, when
he led his barbaric hordes across these track-
less, interminable Siberian wastes, evinces
a military genius of no mean order. Our
admiration at the indomitable will and con-
summate skill of this Mongolian chieftain
rises higher and higher. Like Alexander
the Great, he aimed at world-wide dominion,
proclaiming that "as there was but one God
in heaven, so there should be but one ruler
on earth."

Some six centuries ago these hardy pio-
neers suffered untold hardships as they

1The Destiny of Man, by John Fiske, pp. 87 and 89.

KING-AN AND GENGHIS KHAN 75

. . . fought to win the prize
And sailed through bloody seas.

To-day, in glaring contrast, we, leisurely
lounging in our comfortable, well-heated
coupes, and surrounded by obliging servants
on the alert to attend to our every want and
whim, are indeed being carried along "on
flowery beds of ease."

In our day — strangely enough — a reflex
movement in the tide of men is noticeable.
Those enormous masses of Asiatics, under
the sway of Genghis Khan and Timur, swept
like a floodtide toward the setting sun. Now
the ever-increasing tide of Russian immigra-
tion along the iron road and the extensive
waterways flows eastward on its ebb at the
rate of nearly 1,000,000 a year.

Mongol Imprint

Russia had suffered more from Mongolian
invasion than any other European power.
Napoleon's drastic epigram, "Grattez le
Russe et vous troiwerez le Tartare," contains
as much truth as wit. One of Russia's own
aristocracy, Prince Dolgorouki^ reveals
Russia in these words: "Russia is an im-
mense edifice, having a European exterior,
adorned with a European fagade, but in the
interior it is furnished and managed Asiati-
cally. The very large majority of Russian
officials, disguised in uniforms more or less
European, proceed in the exercise of their

76 STRANGE SIBERIA

official tasks as genuine Tartars." Gibbon,
the historian, sumsi up the Mongolian im-
print in this way: "Both Moscow and Kiev
— the modern and ancient capitals — were re-
duced to ashes (by the Mongols) ; a tempo-
rary ruin, less fatal than the deep and per-
haps indelible mark, which a servitude of
two hundred years has imprinted on their
character."

Chinovnik

= Chin

(pronounced like "ch" in China or the Eng-
lish word "chin," the lower part of the face)
means "Imperial Grant."

"Chin," or "Tschin," adopted by Russia
from the Mongol invaders, was branded deep
by Peter the Great on the Russian body
politic. This barbaric Chin, with its chino-
vniks (or tschinovniks) , will ever remain
an ugly scar until the bright day dawns
whose healing rays will diffuse among Rus-
sia's millions the long-coveted blessings of
enlightened freedom. This Chin, consisting
of a Mongolian system of rank — not of birth,
education, or wealth — is an arbitrary grade

KING-AN AND GENGHIS KHAN 77

of distinction, conferred at the pleasure of
the Tsar. Look at this instance: In 1889 all
the justices of peace were, one fine morn-
ing, removed by a special ukase of Alexander
III, and succeeded by "rural district cap-
tains," men of no legal education whatever.
In China all the evil effects of this system
are more than counterbalanced by the demo-
cratic competitive civil service examination.
These examinations in China, open even to
the lowest peasant, furnish an opportunity
for all Chinese ambitious of office, and serve
as a safety valve to the seething body politic.
In Russia, on the other hand, this despotic
caste system is graded into fourteen classes.
Only chinovniks, or holders of these distinc-
tions, are eligible for office. The military
chinovniks form not only the ruling class,
but practically the only class. The energy
and intelligence of Russia are centered in
her army, which, with a few exceptions,
claims every male within the age limit, that
is, from the twenty-first to the forty-third
year, the first eighteen years being spent in
the standing army and the last four in the
militia. This system of Chin is the colossal
incubus which is crushing out liberty and
education. Henry Ward Beecher, in show-
ing that religious freedom is based upon
education, instanced the schoolhouses as
well as the churches of New England, affirm-
ing, "Our New England fathers, although

78 STRANGE SIBERIA

failing here and there in some points in the
administration of religious liberty, were pre-
eminent for the time in which they lived,
and, at the bottom, they were really the
workmen that brought in the doctrine of
religious freedom, because they undertook to
make intelligent men." In the Russian em-
pire statistics show that only three per cent
of the population can read. Russia provides
for less than two million out of her popula-
tion of one hundred and thirty millions, so
that education is unknown, except among
the upper classes.

One of the most malign and monstrous
bureaus of this Chin is that of the Holy Or-
JhiidfixChurch^ presided over by a layman,
who is suBject only to the authority of the
Tsar, as was originally constituted by Peter
the Great. This lay Pope, styled the Over-
Procurator of the Most Holy Governing
Synod, has veto power over the other mem-
bers of this Synod, who are personally se-
lected by the Tsar from among the higher
clergy of the Orthodox Church.

Some of the mechanical methods of this
powerful bureau have been disclosed by
Baron Uxhull. He tells us that "a Moham-
medan, or a heathen, or a Jew, if he wished
to become a Christian, could join only the
Greek Orthodox Church. . . . For a thousand
converts, the Greek Orthodox missionary re-
ceived a decoration, a cross on his breast,

KING-AN AND GENGHIS KHAN 79

and a certain sum of money. When they
went into a village they did not preach
Christ. They said: 'See, we have come to
invite you to join the religion of the em-
peror; the emperor is the most mighty man
in the whole world, and as he is of the Greek
Orthodox religion, of course the Greek Or-
thodox religion is the best, and the police
will be indulgent to you, and the judge will
favor you, if you join the Greek Orthodox
Church, and next Sunday I will receive all
of those who wish to become members of the
Greek Orthodox Church, and every one of
you will receive a little cross to wear around
the neck, as the Greek Orthodox do, and a
white shirt.' And then the missionary re-
ceived the heathen, and every one received
the little cross around his neck and the
white shirt for baptism." Moreover, accord-
ing to the bureaucratic regulations, every
priest must marry, for had not Paul in-
structed Timothy, "Let the deacons be the
husbands of one wife"? Thisi wife is not a
helpmeet of his own choice, but a virgin —
never a widow — selected for him by his
bishop. If that one wife dies the rigid rules
require that the husband can no longer offi-
ciate as a priest, but must take monastic
vows or enter into secular work, so that
naturally her husband has incentives to
treat her well. Hence the popular proverb,
•'Happy as a priest's wife."

80 STRANGE SIBERIA

For fifteen years Count Dmitry Tolstoy, a
cousin of the novelist, was the Over-Pro-
eurator, although he was an avowed atheist.
Religion had, indeed, been dragged down to
the depths, when the chief authority in the
church was vested in a man who boldly de-
clared himself an unbeliever. The change
was, however, much for the worse, when
Pobiedonostzeff succeeded him. Neither
George Washington nor Abraham Lincoln
could have indorsed his political theories, as
published in his Reflections of a Russian
Statesman, where he affirms, "Among the
falsest of political principles is the prin-
ciple of the sovereignty of the people, the
principle that all power issues from the peo-
ple, and is based upon the national will."1

"This nonmitered Hildebrand and non-
purpled Nero is inextricably involved in the
history of the religious life of Russia for a
period of about twenty-five years. The fero-
cious slaughterings of the saints of God
under the pagan Roman emperors, under our
English Queen Mary, and even the Walden-
sian and Huguenot massacres, dwindle be-
side the 'havoc of the church,' wrought by
this man Pobiedonostzeff.

"It has been said that no tyrant is so
remorselessly tyrannical as the religious
fanatic. The Over-Procurator was pre-

1 Reflections of a Russian Statesman, by K. P. Pob-
iedonostzeff-Grant Richards, London. 1898. In chapter
"The Greatest Falsehood of Our Time," p. 32.

KING-AN AND GENGHIS KHAN 81

eminently a 'religious' man. He might be
seen almost any day, when in residence at
the Winter Palace, wandering around the
imperial private gardens', with a prayer
book in his hands, mumbling his devotions.
During the greater part of the year he re-
tires to the Sergieff Monastery and mortifies
his flesh as vigorously as any anchorite, re-
maining for days upon his knees, fasting and
beating his forehead against the stone floor.

"It might be said of him, as the monk
Nicholas said to Ivan the Terrible, when he
was contemplating the massacre of the peo-
ple of Pskoff. Ivan visited Nicholas in his
cell. The monk offered him a piece of raw
meat. 'I am a good Christian,' said Ivan,
'and eat no meat during Lent.' 'Thou doest
worse,' answered Nicholas, 'for thou feastest
upon the flesh and blood of Christians.'

"Like Saul of Tarsus, Pobiedonostzeff had
a zeal for God that was not to him at all in-
consistent with 'breathing out threatenings
and slaughter' against his servants. He
sincerely imagined that be was 'doing God's
service.' 'You believe in a Christ of weak-
ness and sentiment ; but I believe in a Christ
of authority and power,' said he in a letter
to Count Leo Tolstoy."1

The religious toleration of the Mongols
was far superior to these modern inquisi-

1 Under Three Tsars, by Robert S. Latimer, pp. 133,
136, 138, 139.

82 STRANGE SIBERIA

torial methods, recalling the vindictive
spirit of pious Philip II. Sir Donald Mac-
kenzie Wallace highly extols the religious
toleration~~~of~these Asiatics, adducing the
following facts in proof: "The Grand Khan
Kuyuk caused a Christian chapel to be
erected near his domicile, and one of his
successors, Kublai, was in the habit of pub-
licly taking part in the Easter festivals.
In 1261 the Khan of the Golden Horde al-
lowed the Russians to found a bishopric in
his capital, and several members of his
family adopted Christianity. One of them
founded a monastery and became a saint of
the Russian Church. The Orthodox clergy
were exempted from the poll tax. . . . Many
generations later, when the property of the
church was threatened by the autocratic
power, refractory ecclesiastics contrasted
the policy of the Orthodox sovereign with
that of the 'Godless Tartars,' much to the
advantage of the latter."1

1 Russia, by Sir Donald Mackenzie Wallace, 1905
edition, p. 200.

CHAPTER IX

Siberia

In Siberia's wastes
The ice-wind's breath.
Woundeth, like the toothed steel.
Lost Siberia doth reveal
Only blight and death.

Blight and death alone,
No summer shines.
Night is interblent with day.
In Siberia's wastes alway
The blood blackens, the heart pines.

In Siberia's wastes
No tears are shed,
For they freeze within the brain.
Naught is felt but dullest pain,
Pain acute, but dead.

In Siberia's wastes
Are sands and rocks.

Nothing blooms of green or soft,
But the snow-peaks rise aloft
And the gaunt ice-blocks.

— James G. Mangon.

Prairie and Forest Fires

The plains at evening were often lighted
up by prairie fires, flaring up in the rank,
dry prairie grass, and throwing a fitful,
lurid glare amid the dense darkness of the

83

84 STRANGE SIBERIA

night. Further along, in higher regions,
bright flames were devouring the timber,
evergreens, and white birch.

White Birch

Who would believe, if his own eyes did
not witness the sight, that white birch
formed so large a proportion of the vast
forests of Siberia? The enthusiastic French
geographer, Reclus, states that "toward the
southeast, on the Chinese frontiers, the birch
is encroaching on the indigenous species,
and the natives regard this as a sure prog-
nostic of the approaching rule of the Tsar."
Whether this French scientist's notion, is a
case of chromatic aberration or not, the fu-
ture will doubtless determine. At all events
there seemed to be an unfailing supply of
this choice wood. There seems ever to be a
law of compensation in nature, as when the
shores recede on one continent they at
the same time upheave on the opposite. So
the lotus, whose magnified petals crown the
colossal columns of the mammoth temple of
Karnak — a temple three times as large as
Saint Peter's at Rome — the lotus, which, as
food fit for the gods, was so relished by
Ulysses and his crew, is now extinct in the
land of the Pharaohs. But to-day it blooms
in all its pristine luxuriance in the castle
moats of Tokyo and elsewhere in Japan.
We never were fortunate enough to join any

SIBERIA 85

happy band of Lotus-Eaters in Egypt, but
more than once in China have we tasted the
lotus bean, served hot in an aromatic broth
at feasts. Its inexpressibly delicious flavor
still lingers, as a delightful dream, since it
far excels birds' nest soup, sharks' fins', sea-
slugs, and other rare, costly dainties, so
highly prized by Celestial epicures.

The edelweiss, in quest of which the ar-
dent lover risksi limb and life in venturesome
feat along inaccessible Alpine peaks, and
which the chamois hunter, scaling slippery
heights in hot pursuit of his agile prey,
pauses a moment to pluck and thrust into
his belt, to sell later to the languid tourists
loitering around fashionable hotels below,
is nowadays, as we have before observed,
quite rare in Switzerland. However, these
snowy white, irradiant stars bespangle many
a broad steppe in Mongolia.
Blossoming alone,
Where earth's grief is sorest.

Similarly the beautiful white birch, famil-
iarly associated with the American Indian
and his canoe, is gradually disappearing
from the American continent, but in Siberia
the travelers on the transcontinental trains
day by day pass dense forests of this grace-
ful tree. What the bamboo is to the China-
man the white birch is to the Russian. With
its bark he tans his valuable Russian leather,
while its oil gives it its pungent scent. Its

86 STRANGE SIBERIA

leaves and sap, as well as its oil, possess
certain medicinal qualities, prized as potent
remedies in various chronic ailments, while
its tough, coarse-grained wood serves as ex-
cellent material for furniture and household
utensils, as well as for fuel for his fire to
cheer him with its blaze and warmth during
the prolonged cold of winter. So limitless
seems the supply around him that he does
not hesitate to thatch his cabin with it. The
wood of birch and other trees also serves as
fuel for locomotives.

Transbaikal Scenery

Now and then we would look out of our
car windows upon lovely scenery, just such
cozy glades as would be picked out in our
country for picnic parties. Sometimes our
train would wind its way among mountains
clothed with dark forests, the branches of
whose trees were often trimmed with fanci-
ful, snowy white drapery, as if artistically
arranged there by the wand of some sylvan
elf. Several places reminded us of wild
forest districts in the Adirondacks in early
spring. Rude, zigzag rail fences of the early
Virginia type brought back pleasant mem-
ories of the homeland, and particularly of
that typical American, Abraham Lincoln,
with his rail-splitting propensities. Here,
as the train whirled past, we caught glimpses
of just such bits of landscape as instinc-

Tunnel with Inscription, "To the Atlantic
Ocean"

SIBERIA 87

tively recalled Elizabethtown on the Lake
Champlain side of the Adirondacks and
restful nooks as make a summer at North
Conway, New Hampshire, so delightful.

Generally, we were favored with fair
weather. Only occasionally storms oc-
curred, or a short-lived gale would go
soughing through the forest, when the
Wind, the grand old harper, emote
His thunder-harp of pines.

On the morning of the second day out from
Harbin we passed through a little tunnel
with big inscriptions. "To the Great Ocean"
was inscribed on the frieze of its eastern
entrance, while on the western side was "To
the Atlantic Ocean."

Customs Examination

At three o'clock on the afternoon of the
third day out our train pulled up at the
station, Manchuria, near the border of Man-
churia and Siberia. Here our passports and
baggage were examined. All the trunks
were carried from the baggage van into a
commodious room at the station, where they
were opened and subjected to a rigid and
rough examination. Trays were lifted out
without much ceremony, while the customs
examiners, delving down to the bottom,
caused considerable confusion and com-
plaint. Forewarned of the nuisance of
traveling "via Siberia" with trunks, we had

88 STRANGE SIBERIA

all of our traveling effects packed in hand-
bags, suitcases, and shawl-bundles — nine in
all. After finishing our overland trip at
Saint Petersburg we discarded the handbags
and repacked most of our possessions in a
large Russian trunk.

The hand-baggage was examined on the
train. A Russian merchant from Vladivo-
stok, who was traveling with his wife, and
on whom we had been practicing broken
Russian, tried to inveigle us to act as his
accomplices in smuggling a box of cigars.
After politely but firmly refusing, he later
informed us that he had found somebody
else to do that deed for him. For some rea-
son or other our refusal to help him defraud
the Russian government did not seem to
make any perceptible difference in his at-
titude toward us, for the next morning he
was as affable and talkative as ever. When
the customs examiners came to our coupe*
one of them felt with his long cane under
our seats, and with his hands searched be-
neath the mattress of our sleeping berths.
Suspicious of cigar-smuggling, one inspec-
tor, noticing an outside pocket of my coat
bulging a little, pointed to it, felt of it on
the outside, and then requested me to show
what was inside. So soon as a red-covered
"Baedeker" was produced, he seemed per-
fectly satisfied, promptly chalked the rest of
our baggage, and speedily walked off, while

SIBERIA 89

the faces of the bystanders were suffused
with smiles. A few days later, before reach-
ing Lake Baikal, at a station called Tan-
choi, our baggage was again examined. This
examination, occurring at half past two in
the early morning, was most inconvenient,
interfering with the slumbers of the pas-
sengers, so that many preferred to remain
dressed until this ordeal was over. So far
as our party was concerned the examination
was merely nominal. My wife and babe had
retired several hours earlier and were sleep-
ing. As the inspector peered into our
coupe" I simply said, in Russian, "Americans,
New York," which he at once comprehended
and accepted at its full face value in lieu of
any examination whatever.

Chita

Some careful observers, as William Oliver
Greener, in his Greater Russia, are of the
opinion that "east of the Baikal is Russia's
greater and better half, because the land
has been influenced from the West by the
way of the cosmopolitan Far East." Cer-
tain it is that great enterprise has been
shown in this district.

In the early morning, before arriving by
the waters of Lake Baikal, our train pulled
up at Chita, the flourishing capital of the
Transbaikal District. Several German of-
ficers, conveying troops from their fatherland

90 STRANGE SIBERIA

for guard duty in north China, had traveled
through this region the previous spring.
Their letters, narrating the journey, had
been published in a German newspaper at
Tientsin. In these letters they gave glow-
ing descriptions of Chita, whose romantic
location and scenery reminded them of their
beloved Heidelberg on the Neckar.

Heidelberg, du schone Stadt,

Wenn es ausgeregnet hat.

Dr. J. Purvis Smith, of Peking, who had
twice passed this way, regarded Chita as an
ideal spot for a summer resort. Historically
also Chita presents many interesting fea-
tures.

"Damskaya," or "Ladies Street," is the
name of the main thoroughfare. It is so
named in honor of those faithful wives of
the nobility who followed into exile their
patriotic husbands, called "dekabrists," be-
cause on "December" 24, 1825, they were
implicated in an uprising at Saint Peters-
burg and banished to this remote Cossack
post. The heroic devotion of Lady Trube-
tskoy, Princess Maria Wolkhonsky, and the
other Russian wives, who followed their ex-
iled husbands on that long and painful jour-
ney, has been immortalized by Nekrasov in
his poem entitled "Russian Women." Chita
boasts of its fine schools for boys and girls,
a training school for midwives, a museum
well worth visiting, a branch of the Russo-

SIBERIA 91

China Bank, and various large government
buildings.

We had planned to stop over here, but as
the only "Official Guide of the Siberian Rail-
way," published a few years previously,
stated, "Hotels are Tokyo and Bianchinsky,
with rooms at two rubles per day. The
rooms are bad," etc., we hesitated until we
could ascertain whether we could secure
more tempting accommodations. In reply
to our inquiries, the Minister of Ways and
Communications at Saint Petersburg recom-
mended one hotel, the Russo-China Bank at
Harbin another, and the old reliable firm of
Kunst & Albers, at Vladivostok, still an-
other. Afterward an American fellow
traveler, who stopped off there and later
met us at Irkutsk, told us that he had
stopped at a still different hostelry and had
found the service and cuisine excellent.

Albazin

The clear waters of the stream along the
east bank on which the city of Chita is built
have a trend northeastward and empty into
the Amur River, not far from Albazin, a
frontier post of the Russians, established
in 1651, but destroyed by the Chinese in
1689. The Russian soldiers, captured dur-
ing these border skirmishes, were sent as
prisoners to Peking. At the time Peter the
Great dispatched a friendly mission to Pe-

92 STRANGE SIBERIA

king they found a Russian colony in the
northeast quarter of the city, composed of
those Russian prisoners. These were even-
tually formed into a Russian company — a
body of foreign soldiers somewhat analogous
to the papal Swiss Bodyguard at Rome,
Italy. In China's capital this Russian com-
pany was attached to the Imperial Body-
guard of the illustrious Chinese emperor,
Kang-Hsi, that wise, liberal, and enterpris-
ing Manchu monarch, whose Chinese dic-
tionary is the rich thesaurus for all subse-
quent Chinese lexicographers.

Less than three hundred miles further
down the Amur, directly opposite the mouth
of its tributary, Kumara, on a prominent
projecting cliff, has been erected a huge iron
cross, visible miles and miles away. This
Christian emblem is inscribed with the
Christian sentiment forming the opening
sentence in the address of Baron Korft,
"Power lies not in force but in love." Sad
irony of fate! Less than one hundred miles
further downstream lies the city of Blago-
veshchenk, the scene of the ruthless slaughter
of Chinese by Russians in 1900.

On its way from Chita toward Lake
Baikal our train halted at Verchne-Udinsk
(or Upper Udinsk), entrancingly located at
the junction of the Uda and Selenga Rivers.
Here are the headquarters of the Trans-
baikal Mountain District and a branch of

SIBERIA 93

the Russo-China Bank. This is the strategic
point where the Peking-Kalgan Air Line
will probably unite with the Trans-Siberian
Railway. Trains are now regularly running
lin eight hours' time) between Peking and
Kalgan, and the line is being projected via
the sacred city of Urga and the trading
post, Kiachta, to this city. A glance at the
map will show what a great saving in dis-
tance will be made by using this "Path of
the Cossack" — the old caravan route across
the desert of Gobi — so long traversed by
camels laden with tea from China to Rus-
sia.1 Fifteen miles further downstream the
railway crosses the Selenga on a bridge 1,816
feet long. From Verchne-Udinsk the traveler
may proceed by steamer, or by post in a
tarantass southward some one hundred
miles to Selenginsk, a place hallowed with
sacred memories. Here lived and labored
from 1818 to 1841 two noble but almost un-
known English missionaries, William Stally-
brass and Edward Swan. These pioneers of
the cross did heroic, faithful work among
the Mongols, and translated the entire Bible
into the Mongolian tongue. A faint idea of
the inherent difficulty of this language may
be had by bearing in mind that our simple
English word "for" with causal meaning is
written in Mongol with eleven syllables —
"Tere-yagano-tola-hemebesu." Displaying

1 The Russian Road to China, by LIndon Bates, Jr.

94 STRANGE SIBERIA

the same praiseworthy assiduity and faith-
fulness as actuated Robert Morrison in
China, these two Christian pioneers cleared
the way for Gilmour and all later mission-
aries among the Mongols.

All through the night the Imperial State
Express kept forging its way over and
across, up and down the snarled, twisted
slopes of the Transbaikal range. When our
train came to a standstill at Missovaia
scarcely had the faintest rays of the rising
sun begun to throw a glow, as a delicately
tinted gossamer veil, over the snow-crowned
mountain summits. Those towering peaks
stood with closed ranks, like gaunt, grim
giants, guarding, as their willing captive, the
fair form of this lovely, though oft fickle,
lake, now calmly reposing at their feet.
Missovaia lies directly on the shores of Lake
Baikal, whose surface is fifteen hundred feet
above the sea level. Here was opened before
our eyes a magnificent panorama of superb
loveliness. The placid surface of the great
lake reflected in the bright morning light
the snow-capped mountains and the floating
clouds in the blue sky above.

After the Great Lakes of North America
and Victoria Nyanza in Africa, Lake Baikal
is the largest body of fresh water on the
globe. An idea of its immense size may be
gained by comparison. It is as long as Eng-
land, and in places it is more than a mile

Ice Breaker, '•Baikal," ox Lake Baikal

SIBERIA 95

deep. Its clear, greenish waters are well
stocked with fish, but it has the unique dis-
tinction of being the only body of fresh
water in which seals live and sport.

Before the railway around the lake was
opened, in 1905, the traffic was carried over
the lake in sledges on the ice, or by large
ice-breaking steamers, to and from the harbor
of Baikal on the opposite shore. The two
"ice-breakers," named respectively Baikal
and Angara, are most powerful steamers,
built in England by the well-known firm of
Armstrong. The ice-breaker Baikal is large
enough to carry twenty-five ordinary Eu-
ropean freight cars, while its titanic en-
gines, developing 3,750 horse-power, crush
into atoms or thrust on either side any ice
presumptuous enough to oppose its progress.

The sinuous southern border of Lake
Baikal, in the character of its massive moun-
tains, whose rugged cliffs and precipitous
spurs boldly advance into the deep, allowing
only here and there scanty, narrow, sandy
beaches, resembles the Italian Riviera from
Pisa to Genoa and beyond. The roadbed is
well ballasted on solid foundations. All
reports of quicksands, causing the railway
embankment to fall down in times of heavy
rains, were found to be mere myths, if not
baseless cavils of an enemy. Extensive and
expensive rock-cutting was in evidence.

Between Missovaia and Baikal — the last

96 STRANGE SIBERIA

station of the railway bordering the lake —
our train skirted along the indented, pic-
turesque coast, plunging in and out of some
eighty tunnels. Any tourist who takes the
railway line along the curving, rocky coast
of the Ligurian Sea may have the same kind
of experience in passing through a similar
succession of tunnels. So numerous are the
tunnels along that Italian coast that even
now memory conjures up vivid pictures of
two American children amusing themselves
and at the same time practicing Chinese and
French by counting alternately in these dif-
ferent tongues the rapidly passing tunnels
as they came along in quick succession.

Siberian Waterways

On the crisp morning of May 20, while we
were stopping at Baikal, the ice, broken into
large and small cakes, was still floating on
the surface of the lake. At this station the
railway left the lake and ran along the left
bank of the Angara River to Irkutsk, but
this river continues one thousand miles
further on its tortuous course, until it pours
its waters into the broad Yenesei. The
waters of the Angara, as it issues from Lake
Baikal, are as swift and clear as those of the
Rhone, where they rush forth out of Lake
Leman at Geneva, Switzerland.

It may not be generally known that the
finest and most extensive system of inland

SIBERIA 97

navigation in the world is to be found in
Siberia. Vessels can go from Lake Baikal
via the Angara to the Yenesei and thence
up one of its tributaries, the Kass, and pass
through a canal to the Ket River, a tributary
of the Obi, and thence by the Obi, Irtysh,
and Tobol Rivers to the very base of the
Ural Mountains. This inland water route
is only one part of the 15,000 miles of inland
navigation which Siberia possesses. These
mighty rivers, freighted with steamers and
other craft, transport men and goods north-
ward to the Arctic Ocean and southward to
the mines, grazing grounds, and fastnesses
of the Altai Mountains.

Strange as it may seem, official statistics
show that far more immigrants are conveyed
in Siberia by steamers than by train. Put-
nam-Weale states: "Great crowds come by
steamer up the rivers Obi and Irtysh, and
in a lesser degree the Yenesei. From 1897
to 1904 — the beginning of the war — it is cal-
culated that 200,000 were annually entering
the country in this way, while the number of
those conveyed by railway sometimes ex-
ceeded 100,000." Anyone aware of these
facts need not be surprised that the keen-
sighted, though defeated warrior, General
Kuropatkin, in his painstaking treatise on
the Russo-Japanese war, points out with the
eye of a Moltke as one of five essentials for
success in any future war in the Far East,

98 STRANGE SIBERIA

"to prepare the waterways of Siberia for the
movement of heavy freight from west to
east."

A delightful ride of forty-one miles in the
wide, fertile Angara valley, dotted with vil-
lages and farmsteads, brought us to Glas-
gow, as the railway suburb opposite Irkutsk
is called. We alighted and entered the large
railway station, modeled after the usual Eu-
ropean type, with commodious restaurants of
the first, second, and third-class, and numer-
ous offices and rooms for railway business,
besides newspaper stands, where periodicals
and picture postals were displayed for sale.
All around usi were officials — railway and
military — porters, passengers, immigrants,
and onlookers. Locomotives were whistling,
bells ringing, and trains being shunted.
Near by were yards, fencing in lumber and
other kinds of freight. On the other side of
the Angara, in the near distance, loomed up
the domes, towers, and pinnacles of the city
of Irkutsk, luring us thither. The porter of
Hotel Metropole, already notified by tele-
gram, greeted usi and engaged two droskies.
After piling our nine "articles de voyage" in
one vehicle and assisting us into the other,
he sped ahead on his bicycle. Our droskies
followed at a slower pace, and in crossing
over the Angara on the pontoon bridge
stopped a few moments to pay the customary
toll of a few kopeks.

SIBERIA 99

The icy cold, emerald waters of the An-
gara rather chill and repel the beholder, as
do those of the Saguenay near Quebec, for
rivers, like men, seem to possess a person-
ality of their own. The Rhine and the Hud-
son attract by their winsomeness. We love
to linger along their banks and find rest in
their peace and beauty. The Saguenay and
the Angara, on the other hand, although
mighty and majestic, with deep and power-
ful current, rather repel. We may admire,
but we do not love.

CHAPTER X

Irkutsk

The police are few, escaped convicts and ticket-
of-leave men many. In Irkutsk, and all towns east
of it, the stranger should not walk after dark. If
a carriage cannot be got, as is often the case, the
only way is to tramp noisily along the planked
walk. Be careful in making crossings, and do not
stop, or the immense mongrel mastiffs, turned loose
into the streets, as guards, will attack. To walk
in the middle of the road is to court attack from
the garroters, with which Siberia abounds. — Brad-
show's Through Routes to the Chief Cities of the
World, latest edition, 1907, under "Irkutsk."

Safety

Corroborating this quotation from Brad-
shaw — the vade-mecum of every loyal British
traveler — but giving more minute particu-
lars, writes William Oliver Greener as fol-
lows!: "Siberian towns, even capitals like
Tomsk, Irkutsk, and Kharbarovsk, are
squalid, mean, and unkempt. The streets
are badly illuminated, and after dark are
roamed by great yard-dogs — mastiffs and
other fierce brutes — which are trained to
take little or no attention of the few pe-
destrians who tramp noisily along the side-
walks, but approach and commence to attack
if one hesitates but so long as necessary to
100

IRKUTSK 101

determine whether to turn to right or left.
The dogs of Constantinople are lapdogs in
comparison to these savage mongrels turned
loose in all Siberian towns and villages after
dark. Crime is prevalent in all Siberian
towns; murders, assaults, outrages, and
burglary are the common forms. Garroting
is the usual device of the footpad. With a
short stick or a noose of twine, he approaches
his victim stealthily from the rear, slips the
cord over his head, and strangles the man,
woman, or child, who is unable to utter a cry.
Then he strips the body of everything likely
to lead to its identification and decamps.
If there is an accomplice he blocks the
stranger's advance or engages his attention
at the right moment."1 At Vladivostok,
years ago, we gladly gave the right of way
to such massive canine brutes, which were
like
Vice, ... a monster of so frightful mien,
As, to be hated, needs but to be seen.

Grains of truth are doubtless to be found
in these heaps of exaggeration. Still the
patent fact remains that during the last
decade Siberia, as well as all the Far East,
has been far from stagnant.

Candor, however, compels one to ask, "Are
Irkutsk, Tomsk, and other Siberian cities
the only unsafe spots on the surface of the
globe?" Have Berlin, London, and San

1 Greater Russia, 1904, pp. 116, 117.

102 STRANGE SIBERIA

Francisco no toughs, thugs, or hoodlums?
Paris, we know, was recently terrorized by
the vitriol-throwing Apaches on her boule-
vards. Andrew H. Green, "the father of
Greater New York," was shot dead near his
own residence on Manhattan Island, and in
this year of grace, 1910, a banker, Van
Norden, was the victim of one of the most
daring highway robberies in the annals of
crime, and that by two female outlaws.
Surely, aristocratic Dame Knickerbocker
need not hold up her skirts in Pharisaic
aloofness.

"There has been no time in many years
past in which crimes of violence have been
more rife than they have been in recent years
in the oldest and most thickly populated
parts of this community. Take, for in-
stance, the community in and about the city
of New York. Murders, maimings, assaults
with deadly weapons, dynamite bomb ex-
plosions, burglaries, highway robberies, cases
of arson — particularly in crowded tenement
houses — the shootings of wives by drunken
husbands, and of girls by degenerates whom
they have refused to marry; in short, every
kind of violent crime has occurred in and
about the city to an unprecedented extent."1

Vigilance and alertness are valuable as-
sets everywhere, whether in New York or

i Judge Holt, of the United States District Court of
New York, in The Independent, New York, August 11,
1910.

IRKUTSK 103

Nijni-Novgorod, Tomsk, or Timbuctoo. Each
place has its peculiar dangers. If prom-
enading at night in Naples or Irkutsk
may allure the stiletto or garroter's rope,
simple caution would compel the tourist to
restrict his promenading to the daytime.
The summer days in Siberia and Russia are
so lengthened that we could read books or
papers by daylight even later than nine
o'clock in the evening, and we had to be very
careful to darken the windows or rig up an
umbrella to keep the merry sunshine from
awakening little Marion even as early as
three in the morning. With this supera-
bundance of daylight any rational traveler
ought to be satisfied and not grumble be-
cause discretion literally emphasizes the
scriptural advice, "Walk while ye have the
light, lest darkness come upon you."

One night, during our stay at Irkutsk, a
physician received an urgent call from a
patient between one and two o'clock in the
morning. While he was hastily walking to-
ward the patient's home a footpad attacked
him with a revolver. Instantly the physician
fired his own revolver, and was fortunate
enough, with aim sufficiently true, to kill his
assailant. By the simple policy of doing
our sight-seeing in the daytime, and by keep-
ing away from notoriously dangerous locali-
ties, we were not anywhere molested during
our entire stay in Siberia and Russia.

104 STRANGE SIBERIA

Hotel Metropole

The hotel porter, preceding our two dros-
kies, as we rode over the Angara toward our
hotel, did not dash ahead to clear the way,
like a sandaled "betto" through the narrow
streets of Kyoto, nor like a gayly sashed
"sais" in the crowded alleys of Cairo. No
such precaution was necessary, for the
streets that hour seemed to be deserted, with
the exception of a few pedestrians here and
there. It needs a holiday to make those
streets alive with men, women, and children.

On our arrival at Hotel Metropole we were
ushered through a hallway, past a public
telephone, and upstairs to choice rooms on
the first floor. The regulation "icons," or
sacred metallic pictures high up in a corner
of each room, welcomed us as visitors. The
icon in the parlor represented the Madonna
and Babe, and the other the adult Christ.
The apartments, commanding a good view
of the street and beyond, looked commodious
and cheery as the bright sunshine was flood-
ing them with its light and warmth. We
were delighted to find awaiting us a home
mail with late copies of the Outlook and
the Evening Post of New York, and other
periodicals. One letter from Connecticut
had been only twenty-four days on its way,
which made us realize that we were gradu-
ally nearing the homeland.

Hotel Metropole, Irkutsk

Log-Sliding in Park, Tomsk

IRKUTSK 105

Our bedroom was furnished with two beds,
a wardrobe, a chest of drawers, and an in-
genious automatic washstand. The last
mentioned article we found to be a common
piece of furniture in Russian hotels every-
where. This washstand had a marble slab
and bowl on the top, and above at the back
a marble-faced reservoir filled with pure
water and provided with a faucet, while
hidden underneath was a pail for waste
water. Both rooms were equipped with
electric lights. Our adjoining parlor had its
floor covered with oilcloth, over which was
spread a large rug. The room was elabo-
rately furnished with handsomely uphol-
stered red-plush furniture, a sofa and chairs,
large and small, a tall pier-glass between
the two front windows, lace curtains, a bric-a-
brac stand, and two tables. One was a good-
sized writing table, on which lay a large
sheet of blue blotting paper, with inkstand
and pens, and also a fancy movable electric
reading lamp, while the other was our pri-
vate dining table, covered with a white table-
cloth. Mention must also be made of the
typical Russian stove, which stood in a
corner near the door. This was made of
brick, faced with white glazed tiles, and
reached nearly to the ceiling. The stove door
was in the hallway, where the fire is made
and the heat regulated.

Two aspects of Siberian hotel manage-

106 STRANGE SIBERIA

ment surprised us. One was the elegant and
often luxurious furniture and furnishings,
and the other the lack of ordinary necessi-
ties in the bedroom. No soap and no sheets,
except as extras. In this hotel only one
sheet was provided for each bed. How to
manage this single sheet was a puzzle al-
most as difficult to us as were the two sheets
to Booker T. Washington, which he found
upon his bed on his first evening after his
"sweeping" entrance examination at Hamp-
ton Institute. The first night, he tells us,
he slept under both sheets, the second on
top of both, until, noticing how the other
students did, he discovered the golden mean,
which has been his habit ever since. If we
might hazard a Yankee's right, we would
guess that the Russian traveler would pre-
pare himself for his night's rest with this
single sheet in the same way that the popular
ballad of "The Wake of Flannigan" says that
the Irish mourners did for their late friend's
last long rest — "They wrapped him up in
a clean, white sheet." We, however, were
fastidious and extravagant enough to de-
mand two sheets for each bed and slept
soundly, as in the good old-fashioned way at
home. We found by experience that in Si-
beria it is expensive to keep clean. Twenty
cents United States gold is the regulation
charge for one small cake of soap. For-
tunately, we "had taken time by the fetlock,"

IRKUTSK 107

as the Irishman said, since we have provided
ourselves with a sufficient supply of a well-
known soap.

Here, as throughout Siberia, a placard
fastened on the wall of our room indicated
in Russian and French the fixed prices ac-
cording to law for the rooms and for eata-
bles. Here we paid daily two rubles for our
bedroom and three rubles for our parlor.
No extra charge was made for serving meals
in the rooms.

The exterior of this hotel had a curious
primitive appearance, for it was built of
logs, notched at the points of juncture and
projecting at their ends from each corner
of the building. A kind of moss, served as
oakum, pressed tightly between the layers
of logs to keep out the intense cold of the
long winter months.

Irkutsk also boasts of two other hotels
on the main street erected within a few
years. These are not built of logs on the
outside and furnished modernly on the in-
side, like Hotel Metropole, but they are of
modern construction throughout and would
be sightly structures in any city. A chance
acquaintance — an American commercial
traveler — who had stopped off at Chita, met
us a few days later at Irkutsk and wanted
us to visit him at the Grand Hotel, where
he was staying. He could not speak Rus-
sian, and so desired us to help him ask the

108 STRANGE SIBERIA

hotel management to find an interpreter for
him. There was no person at the hotel who
could speak German, French, or English.
Finally, from another section of the city, a
seedy-looking specimen of humanity was se-
cured who knew a little German and proved
of spme assistance.

Lutheran Church

Beautifully located near the heart of the
city, where two broad avenues meet, stands
the attractive Lutheran church, with its
graceful spire pointing heavenward. It is
surrounded by a wood-embowered court in-
closed by a wall of brick and iron grating.
Away out here, in far-away Siberia, it looks
just like many a similar one in Saxony or
the lower Khine country. One did not need
much imagination to believe that it had been
bodily transported here, as they say was the
case of "The Sacred Staircase" from Pilate's
Court at Jerusalem to Home, Italy. "Dein
Name Werde Gelobet," in large letters, in-
scribed on the arch over the front cruciform
window, ought to make any true Deutscher
reverently doff his hat and stand still and
let grateful thoughts of his distant father-
land float soulfully over his memory. This
church we could easily view from our win-
dows, as it was only a few steps away. It
had the distinction of possessing the only
church organ in all Siberia. This is not

Lutheran Church at Irkutsk

IRKUTSK 109

such a unique distinction as at first sight
might appear, for we have to remember that
in all the multitude of Orthodox Greek
cathedrals and churches no organ or other
wind or stringed instruments accompany
the human voice. Only with vocal music,
melodiously rich beyond description, does
the devout adoration of the worshipers soar
heavenward. On Sunday the music, which
formed a large part of the service in this
Lutheran church, was very fine. At the com-
munion service four persons were admitted
and the Lord's Supper administered.

After we had scrubbed off some of the dust
and dirt of travel, and had refreshed our-
selves with a simple luncheon, we walked
over to the parsonage of the Lutheran
church. A neat servant girl opened the
door and ushered us into the parlor, where
soon appeared the pastor, who gave us a
most cordial welcome.

He informed us that the previous year
four British gentlemen from China had
stopped over a few days at Irkutsk. We
ascertained afterward that he had written
the section of Baedeker's Russia referring
to Irkutsk, for he showed us his copy of
Baedeker, on whose fly-leaf were the words,
"With the compliments of the Editor." Al-
though a very busy man and -frequently in-
terrupted by callers, he showed us every
possible attention and courtesy, so that

-•■

Statue of Alexander III at Irkutsk

IRKUTSK 111

confines within its walls 200,000 convicts,
waiting to be drafted for work in the mines.
Irkutsk has also several learned and philan-
thropic societies, including a branch of the
Imperial Society of Saint Petersburg, whose
chief object is to prevent abuses in prison
discipline.

By nature Irkutsk is most favorably situ-
ated, where the Irkut empties into the en-
circling Angara, not far from the great in-
land Lake Baikal. It possesses railway com-
munication east and west by the Trans-
Siberian line, and, being the emporium for
the rich Vitim gold mines and the Amur
trade and travel on the north and northeast,
as well as levying tribute on the increasing
commerce from the Pacific via Vladivostok,
and from Korea and China via Manchuria,
Irkutsk has a great and prosperous future
opening before it.

Bolsche Kaya

Most of the principal buildings, as the
Museum, Opera House, modern hotels, and
large stores, are on the "Bolsche Kaya," or
"Great Street." At the head of this thor-
oughfare stands a colossal bronze statue of
Tsar Alexander III, raised aloft upon a red
Scotch granite pedestal. This statue is near
the edge of a favorite park along the banks
of the Angara. Here on Sundays and other
holidays the populace love to ramble and

112 STRANGE SIBERIA

rest under the trees on the benches. In front
of this statue a Russian soldier paces back
and forth on guard. We were informed that
every winter a large wooden casing is built
around the statue and kept heated, so as to
prevent the surface of the granite from
peeling or splitting off by the action of the
severe cold.

Museum

The Museum happened to be closed for
repairs on our arrival at Irkutsk, but
through the kind mediation of this Luther-
an clergyman, who proved a friend indeed,
an hour was appointed when, under the guid-
ance of the director, we could look over its
valuable collections. Fortunately for us,
most of the exhibits were labeled in both
Latin and Russian. This urbane director,
wearing shaggy locks and a patriarchal
beard, and attired in a long, heavy robe,
with his trousers tucked inside his top-boots,
looked like a veritable "Old Man of the
Woods." His geniality was evidenced by
his incessant, eager efforts to explain his be-
loved curios, but the lifeless Latin helped
us more, and most of all the lucid explana-
tions later given by our German-speaking
friend.

On the second story were extensive collec-
tions of utensils and implements pertaining
to the primitive ages of man, systematically

m

III :." '

IRKUTSK 113

arranged and labeled, and illustrated by life-
sized figures of Buriats, Tulugus, Aleutians,
et al. Some of these wore bead-bedecked
leather garments, like our American Indians.
What especially interested us, however, were
specimens of rhinoceroses, elephants, and
other ancient mammoths, found in these
frozen regions, especially in the Lena valley,
not many miles north. The curious appear-
ances of long, straggling hairs on the hides
of these huge antediluvian monsters at-
tracted our attention. We were told that the
flesh on these mammoths was so solidly fro-
zen and well preserved that when thawed
dogs devoured it with a relish.

Where these mammoths were found is "a
region of alluvial soil, but spread out in
those vast quivering morasses, which form
the urmans of Siberia. Even to wild ani-
mals these urmans are forbidden ground.
The nimble-stepping, broad-hoofed reindeer
can sometimes cross them safely in the sum-
mer time, but most other large animals at-
tempting to do so would be quickly engulfed.
This may be a partial explanation of the
remains of mammoth and rhinoceros, which
are so abundant and so widely diffused
through those northern marshlands of Si-
beria. When an ice-pack breaks down a
river-bank, or floods tear up a frozen marsh,
or the summer thaw penetrates a little more
deeply than usual into the ground, some of

114 STRANGE SIBERIA

these antediluvian monsters are sure to be
exposed. In many cases they are so fresh
and well preserved, with their dark, shaggy
hair and under-wool of reddish brown, their
tufted ears and long, curved tusks, that all
the aborigines, and even some of the Russian
settlers, persist in the belief that they are
specimens of animals which still live, bur-
rowing under ground, like moles, and which
die the instant they are admitted to light.
There is a great market for these tusks at
Yakutsk on the Lena, from which they find
their way not only to the workshops of Eu-
rope, but even to the ivory carvers of Can-
ton."1

Most mysterious and awful is the alchemy
in nature's laboratory. Just to think of it!
Eons earlier, wild elephants, rhinoceroses,
and kindred mammoths roamed freely over
these Siberian plains, as they now do in
equatorial Uganda, hunted by Roosevelt and
other modern Nimrods.

Russian Holidays

Russia is great, especially in holidays.
Holidays in the Russian soil or climate at-
tain an abnormally rank and luxuriant
growth, as1 of the Mesozoic Age. Perchance
the phylogeny of Russian holidays may be
deduced from the same paleozoic period, as

1 Pour Thousand Miles Across Siberia, by Charles
Wenyon, M.D., pp. 234, 235, 236.

IRKUTSK 115

the paleontological monster mammals col-
lected from the paludal plains of polar Si-
beria and preserved in her museums. If this
hypothesis be correct, then, like the marsu-
pial kangaroo, whose former companions are
extinct, leaving them behind as living sur-
vivals, they certainly deserve exact and ex-
haustive investigation. Would it not be
wise for the government to establish in the
University of Tomsk a new chair for such
an interesting study? Transient travelers,
such as we were, dare to hope that, like the
celebrated "Last Rose of Summer," those
Russian holidays are numbered. At all
events they turned out to be a great nui-
sance, especially when a traveler needs to
call upon his banker or to make needful pur-
chases. How long would an American
public refrain from grumbling if all stores
in New York were closed not only on Sun-
days but also often on three other days of
the week? This was the case during our
stay in Irkutsk. Wednesday celebrated the
Tsar's birthday, Thursday was Ascension
Day, and Saturday commemorated the Re-
moval of the Bones of Saint Nicholas. "Who
cares a fig for 'Old Nick' or his dry bones?"
some one may ask. Doubtless a mighty
chorus of children, with vivid visions of
Christmas joy, would vigorously protest
against any intended slight to their patron
saint, but their exasperated elders would

116 STRANGE SIBERIA

gladly eliminate this holiday and most em-
phatically extenuate any apparent profana-
tion of Saint Nicholas.

America, it has been argued for years, has
needed more holidays, but not Russia. There
a rigid excision is demanded. "Business be-
fore pleasure" is certainly not a Russian
maxim so long as nearly one half of the
three hundred and sixty-five days on the
Russian calendar are officially devoted to
idleness, often culminating in beastly drunk-
enness. A Russian holiday is a pathetic
sight. The joyous spontaneity of most other
races is missing.

National Sesames

The popular sayings of a country often
indicate a national characteristic. "Step
lively, please!" of the New York subway at
once shows American push. "Man-man-
tsow!" — "Walk slowly!"— of the Chinese in-
dicates the leisurely dignity of the Wise
Men of the East. "Mariana," or "To-morrow,"
of the Spaniard betrays the decided prefer-
ence of the hidalgo for his beloved siesta
before exerting himself. So Russia has its
significant, characteristic phrase. "Nich-
evo!" or "No matter!" ever recurring on
Slavic lips, reveals the inert, gloomy, credu-
lous temperament of Russia's grim-visaged
millions. How can a people ever be really
happy when a system of espionage, like a

IRKUTSK 117

threatening thundercloud, ever hangs over
them, while Ignorance, with her twin sister,
Superstition, darkens their sky? Nowhere
in the vast Muscovite empire does one see
the hearty good nature of the Chinese or
Anglo-Saxon, nor the spontaneous vivacity
of the Japanese or French. Melancholy is
as plainly marked on the Kussian physiog-
nomy as are the white streaks to Siva or
Vishnu daubed on the forehead of the fana-
tic Hindu. Spasmodic hilarity, stimulated
by governmental vodka, reacts and depresses
the moujik, as does fire water the aboriginal
Aino of Japan and the Indian of America.
Search as we may the musty archives of
the past, still nowhere in history can be
found such a record of high moral purpose,
so persistently and consistently pursued,
as China furnishes to-day. China is hero-
ically stamping out the opium curse, re-
gardless of the annual deficit of millions to
her revenue. Nowhere in Siberia does one
see anything approaching the jolly disposi-
tion so characteristic of the American Negro,
whose good-nature bubbles up and flows over,
even in the midst of hard toil. On the Mis-
sissippi, when the large steamer hugs the
bank for fresh supplies of firewood, the
African deckhand rushes ashore, seizes his
load, quickly returns and piles it up high on
the steamer's deck. All the while drops of
sweat drip from his brow. Still he keeps on

118 STRANGE SIBERIA

singing and keeping time to some popular
plantation melody. In the evening this same
exuberant happiness vents itself in an ex-
temporized concert.

"Mister, let me tell you,
When the music starts,
Hum, hum, I can't keep still.
There's a feeling in my feet
Like Saint Vitus dance,
Although it am against my will.
I am trying mighty hard
For to concentrate.
Hum, hum, what shall I do?
The music sets me going
Like a jumping-jack.
I've got to dance
Until the band gets through."

This national trait of sluggish, apathetic
sadness, so universal and tragic, weighs
heavily upon the dense, dull mass of hu-
manity throughout the Russian dominions.
Even the gentle-spirited Whittier feels
forced to write :

Fell spider of the North,
Stretching thy great feelers forth,
Within whose web, the freedom dies
Of nations eaten up, as flies.

Finland

But what shall we say of the acute pangs
of woe now gripping the hearts of the wide-
awake, liberty-loving nation of Finland?
Their constitutional rights — more highly
prized than life itself — have been ruthlessly

IRKUTSK 119

trampled under foot. Is it possible that to-
day lives any loyal Finn who could find even
a particle of pure joy in any one of these
superfluous Russian holidays? Fast days,
when they might call upon the God of na-
tions for vengeance, they would gladly wel-
come. Finland's lament rends the heavens :

If I forget thee, O Helsingfors,

Let my right hand forget her cunning!

If I do not remember thee,

Let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth!

If I prefer not Helsingfors above my chief joy!

Shopping

Toward the further end of the popular
"Great Street" we came to a crowded depart-
ment store, employing some two hundred
salesmen and women. Here we purchased a
few useful and ornamental articles, such as
fancy fans and a genuine Russian leather
pocketbook. This latter souvenir, whether
stuffed full of bank notes and coin or not,
is a thing of beauty and highly prized by its
owner even to this day. Marshall Jewell,
when American Minister to Russia, found
out in 1873 the secret process of making this
celebrated Russian leather. The skin used
is that of goats or sheep. The leather is
usually black or red. The latter shade is
produced by alum and a decoction of Brazil
and sandalwood ; the former by a solution
of iron and sandalwood. Russian leather is

120 STRANGE SIBERIA

very tough, pliant, and waterproof, and has
a peculiar faculty for resisting moisture
and ravages of insects. The strong, pene-
trating odor is due to the oil of birch used
in its preparation.

Shops

KOAAKM

(pronounced "Kodaky") was a frequent sign
before many stores, showing that this East-
man product from Rochester, New York, was
busy having its films imprinted with many
strange Siberian sights. The clarity of the
atmosphere, resembling that of Denver, Colo-
rado, is especially adapted to photography,
as was evidenced by the numerous photo
studios, exhibiting excellent specimens of the
art.

Fruit stores, generally managed by Ar-
menians, were located in cellars, where the
perishable produce from distant, milder
climes would not be so readily damaged by
the weather. This fruit, for the most part,
comes by rail from Astrakhan, Caucasia,
Crimea, and other districts of south Russia.
We found the apples, oranges, and figs ex-
cellent, but not cheap. Fine-flavored, crisp
apples cost five cents or more (United States

IRKUTSK 121

gold) apiece. We were commenting upon
the fine quality of this fruit in the hearing
of our clerical friend, when he asked us
whether we had noticed the fruit trees in his
yard near the church. He stated that those
trees blossomed every summer, but the sum-
mer season is so short that the frost nipped
the apples when they were no larger than
peas.

At Irkutsk we did not succeed in finding
any "Saint Charles Cream," but bought two
tins of "Henri Nestle's Viking Unsweetened
Milk," made at Copenhagen, Denmark. The
price of this purchase here, as in many an-
other store in Siberia and Russia, was indi-
cated by the familiar click and figures of a
"Cash Register," made at Dayton, Ohio.

Street Strolls

One bright morning we sauntered south-
ward down a broad avenue, opening on the
Great Street, and came in front of a large
wooden arch, erected in the middle of the
thoroughfare. Overhead we read this in-
scription, "This way to the Great Ocean,"
with the dates 1858 and 1891. Evidently it
had served its day by pointing out the way
to adventurous pioneers, before the iron road
binding the Pacific with the Atlantic was
started in 1891. Climbing up a steep ascent,
a short distance beyond this memorial arch,
we came to a cemetery with its mortuary

122 STRANGE SIBERIA

chapel. Looking around, we saw a funeral
procession just beginning to enter the in-
closure. Women carrying the cover of a
coffin, piled with flowers, preceded a party
of men, carrying the bier, which also was
covered with flowers. All soon climbed up
the broad steps into the chapel, where
candles were lit and the last rites performed
by the officiating priest.

Another morning we strolled up a fre-
quented street in a northerly direction, which
brought us to the massive Cathedral and the
extensive square around it. Its northern
side is flanked by a beautiful park, furnish-
ing an outlook on where the river Irkut,
from which the city takes its name, empties
into the Angara. On our way we passed a
number of school buildings and academies,
various government buildings, a brick Ro-
man Catholic church, and numerous Greek
churches. We entered a number of these on
Sundays, holidays, and at other times.

Church Music

Generally, in Greek churches the choir is
composed entirely of male voices, but we
entered one Greek church here where there
were female voices of wonderful sweetness
and compass, but in all Greek church choirs
vocal music is an integral unifying element,
permeating the entire public worship. This
Greek church music bv trained human voices

IRKUTSK 123

possesses a distinctive quality of deep, fas-
cinating richness, irresistibly thrilling. In
its way it stands in a class apart by itself.
These singers dauntlessly take up the gaunt-
let of "Voice and Verse" thrown down by
the poet :

Blest pair of Sirens, pledges of heaven's joys;
Sphere-born harmonious sisters, Voice and Verse!
Wed your divine sounds and mixed power employ,
Dead things with inbreathed sense able to pierce
And to our high-raised phantasy present
That undisturbed song of pure concent
Aye sung before the sapphire-colored throne
To Him, that sits thereon,
With saintly shout and solemn jubilee.1

The quality of this music is unapproachable.
The very select and exceedingly popular
Bach motets, which draw the crowds to the
Saint Thomas Church at Leipzig, the highly
lauded sacred music during Holy Week in
the vast cathedral at Toledo, Spain, or in
the Sistine Chapel, Rome, fail to surpass it.

Its motif varies radically from that prev-
alent in the short, choppy songs and hymns
of so many of our Protestant services, which
are often mere

Short swallow-flights of song, that dip
Their wings in tears and fly away.

On the contrary, these uplifting, full notes
of the Russian church service are broad

1 Milton, Ode, "At a Solemn Muslck."

124 STRANGE SIBERIA

mighty sweeps, as of eagles in their skyward,
cloud-piercing flights, once enjoyed, ever
afterward cherished.

In one Greek church referred to at Irkutsk
the service was in progress, where the sing-
ing of a remarkably sweet-voiced choir, as
of devout nuns, was deliciously rich. In im-
agination we could almost fancy that these
pure souls were being wafted to celestial
heights. There they seemed to join the
angelic choirs, singing "the song of Moses
and of the Lamb." We could almost catch
their high, fluid notes of loving adoration
to the Lamb of God, ravi shingly reverberat-
ing through the corridors of heaven. As,
entranced, we listened to these rhapsodies of
song, it seemed as though their voices
blended in ecstatic antiphony, as in days
past did their sisters, who on the banks of
the Red Sea, under the direction of Miriam,
praised Jehovah, all harmonizing in the deep
diapason of the multitudinous male voices in
emphasizing with great joy the power of God.
Their wondrously rapturous strains rose in
perfect unison, higher and fuller, until all
heaven resounded with the overwhelmingly
sonorous and ineffably sublime Hallelujah
Chorus, "as it were the voice of a great mul-
titude and as the voice of many waters, and
as the voice of mighty thunders, saying,

Hallelujah! For the Lord God,
Omnipotent, reigneth!"

IRKUTSK 125

Churches

Id another church we came upon a few
poorly clad scrub-women hard at work,
sweeping and dusting. They would first
cross themselves, kneel down and kiss the
sacred pictures, and afterward cleanse them,
illustrating George Herbert's lines:

A servant with this clause

Makes drudgery divine;
Who sweeps a room as for Thy laws

Makes that and th' action fine.

Inside this church, not far from the en-
trance, was a large case in which were
displayed various sacred objects for sale.
We bought a package of gilded card icons
of the Madonna, as souvenirs.

The extensive Cathedral Square is the
rendezvous for cheap-jack shows, wild-beast
exhibitions, merry-go-rounds, candy-sellers,
and knickknack hawkers of every description.
One part of this square is reserved for the
Cossack cavalry. Here can be witnessed
daring equestrian exercises of these troopers,
sights especially exciting to the small boy,
and always drawing large crowds. The
hurdle practice of these Cossack horsemen
might well challenge the equine feats of
Roosevelt's Rough Riders.

Schools

The commodious school buildings show
how highly Irkutsk prizes education. Addi-

126 STRANGE SIBERIA

tional proof is adduced from the fact that
this city sets aside ten per cent of its annual
income for educational purposes.

On one walk we passed a bevy of school-
girls, chaperoned by their teacher, marching
along the sidewalk. They were all dressed
in a uniform and wore white aprons and
black felt hats. Many peasant women, whom
we saw on the street, wore aprons of black
or in colors, and all had their hair neatly
wrapped in scarfs, usually white.

Excursion to Monastery

One day the air was so stifling hot that
the least exertion proved a weariness to the
flesh, and, since we were warmly dressed,
brought out the perspiration. At the same
time, as if to add insult to injury, a regular
North-China dust-storm overtook us, pursu-
ing us with relentless fury, as if riotously
exulting in its successful effort to find us so
far away from our Chinese home and wan-
tonly scattering its fine dirt and dust in our
faces.

Another time we were strolling with other
holiday-makers along the Great Street to-
ward the Riverine Park, where stands the
lofty statue of Tsar Alexander III. With-
out warning a rain-squall scattered the
crowd, who scuffled away for shelter, while
we hailed an isvoshchik, and rode in his
drosky to our hotel. But on the morning on

IRKUTSK 127

which we started on our excursion to the
Monastery of Saint Innocent the day was
perfect. Light clouds were lazily scudding
over the deep azure sky, and the air was
crisp and bracing. Many a time, as we were
wandering around Cathedral Square and
along the river bank, we had cast longing
eyes on the distant white domes and towers
of this monastery silhouetted on the horizon,
and especially alluring when gilded by the
golden glow of the setting sun. So we
planned to make an excursion thither. In
all Irkutsk there was only one German-
speaking drosky-driver, and we engaged him
the evening before to be at our hotel at nine
o'clock the following morning. He was true
to his word, and proved eager to explain ob-
jects and incidents on the way. A short ride
through the city brought us to the steep
bank by the ferry. Our driver safely de-
scended the declivity and boarded the ferry-
boat, stationing us amid a motley collection
of vehicles, both elegant and shabby. Be-
sides carriages and droskies there were
"telegas," or basketlike buckboards, while
one peasant's wagon had a drygoods box
with a board, on which sat Mr. and Mrs.
Moujik. The charge for ferriage was sixteen
kopeks. The motive power was the swift
current of the Angara, for a strong chain,
supported by buoys and small boats and
anchored in the middle of the river several

128 STRANGE SIBERIA

rods upstream, allowed the ferryboat to
sway at the option of the pilot from one
bank to the other. A short distance above
the ferry the muddy Irkut was painting a
broad brownish fringe along the further
side of the crystal Angara, as does the turbid
Arno the lucid waters of the arrowy Rhone
below Rousseau's Isle. Scattered blocks of
ice from Lake Baikal were now and then to
be seen floating down the stream. In some
respects the drive across country reminded
us of the flat Hackensack meadows in New
Jersey. There were numerous cross-streams,
canals, and watercourses, over which wooden
bridges were thrown. Immediately after
reaching higher ground we entered a small
village, stretched out on one long street, like
some Canadian settlements near Montmo-
renci Falls, Quebec. Every other house
seemed to be a tiny grocery shop. Near the
northern end stood the monastery, guarded
by its high walls and a belfry, where hung
the bells, tier on tier, the larger below.

This monastery was erected in memory of
Saint Innocent, a Greek priest eminent for
his successful missionary labors in Siberia.
After his wife's death he was accorded the
high honor of being appointed by Philaret,
the Metropolitan of Moscow, as the archi-
mandrite of the wealthy, influential Troitsa
Monastery near Moscow. Troitsa Monastery
had been famous as a monastic stronghold,

IRKUTSK 129

impregnable against the attacks of Tartars,
Poles, and French. Like Castle San Angelo
and Orvieto in Italy, it had served as a safe
place of refuge for the rulers of the land in
times of uprising or invasion.

The usual procedure for a priest who be-
came a widower was either to leave the
clergy or become a monk. Innocent, enthu-
siastically engaged in his good work away
off in the wilds of Siberia, refused to become
a monk, and so declined the tempting offer
to be archimandrite of that rich monastery.
As a priest he continued faithfully to min-
ister to the unchurched Siberian settlers,
who deeply loved him while he lived and
highly cherished his memory when he died.
Innocent declared that because a priest's
wife had died, to cease to be a priest or to
become a monk "was more a custom than a
canon." This laconic epigram startled, as
by a thunderclap, the mechanical scruples
of the monks, but among the more enlight-
ened class awakened an approving response.

Leaving a native in charge of our drosky
and wraps, our driver acted as guide, and
showed us around the premises. Services
were going on in the church, which we as-
cended by a high flight of cast-iron steps.
We trod upon many cast-iron slabs, inscribed
with epitaphs laid in the pavement of the
church floor. We watched the service soon
drawing to a close, witnessed a priest giving

130 STRANGE SIBERIA

communion wafers to a few children, and
admired the seraphic singing of a boy choir,
assisting the priests.

At the close of the service a crowd of dev-
otees quickly gathered before a handsomely
embroidered golden canopy near the center
of the church. Here on an elevated dais was
a richly decorated casket with its lid off,
said to contain the bones of Saint Innocent.
Behind this casket sat a priest, clothed in
elaborate yellow robes and busy tearing
cotton-batting into shreds. The devotees
first climbed on their knees up the front
steps, kissing each step on the way up. Ar-
riving on the upper platform, they stood
erect, then one by one reverently bent over
and devoutly kissed the bones of the saint
and deposited coins, when the priest handed
each a small bit of the cotton. Our driver
advised us to follow suit, but we preferred
simply to hand the priest in charge a small
"douceur," which seemed to satisfy him, for
he presented us with bits of the blessed cot-
ton the same as the rest.

Scattered through the gardens of the
monastery were various other buildings,
large and small, more or less connected with
the life of this local though famous saint.
The hovel in which he is said to have lived
and a sort of antiquated chariot, in which
he rode forth on his errands of mercy, were
shown us.

IRKUTSK 131

A Pious Fraud

After our return to the city we were re-
lating to our Lutheran friend our experi-
ences at this monastery, when he regaled us
with an account of a recent pious fraud,
which had greatly stirred up society in this
out-of-the-way Siberian city. It seems that
during the Russo-Japanese War a corporal
named Nassili Sytchewa, of the 285th In-
fantry, deserted from his regiment on the
Manchurian battlefield and fled to Irkutsk.
Pretending to be so seriously wounded that
he could not walk, he was ordered to the
military hospital at Irkutsk. He had his
legs and head wrapped around with band-
ages. Disguised in this style, he had his
photograph taken with a Sister of Charity
at his side, administering medicine. On
several nights he was detected walking
stealthily about in the dimly lighted room.
It happened about this time, 1905, a great
religious festival occurred, commemorating
the centennial of the burial of Saint Inno-
cent. Availing himself of this event, this
renegade managed to have himself conveyed
to their monastery, where he kissed the bones
of Saint Innocent. Instantly his strength
returned, so he threw away his crutches.
The nurses and doctors who were cognizant
of his knavery in the hospital made loud and
frequent protests against his misrepresenta-

132 STRANGE SIBERIA

tions, but apparently to no avail. Furnished
with funds, this runaway succeeded in hav-
ing himself sent to Saint Petersburg, where
he was granted a private audience with the
Tsar. He presented to his Majesty the affi-
davit of the monks of the Monastery of Saint
Innocent, affirming his miraculous cure
through the efficacy of the bones of their
favorite saint. After the imperial sanction,
these monks had printed thousands of leaf-
lets, narrating the incident, which were scat-
tered broadcast. One of these was shown
us. The nurses at the hospital — many of
whom belonged to the upper classes of
Irkutsk, who had loyally volunteered their
services during the war — were amazed at the
credulity of so many of their cultured asso-
ciates, who could swallow whole such an im-
position with as much avidity as the igno-
rant, gullible rabble.

Marriage Hindrances

One day, as in company with our Lutheran
friend we were strolling along a business
street, we stepped into a large, well-stocked
furniture shop and, finding the proprietor
in, he entered into a lively conversation with
him. This Russian was a sturdy, well-
favored man of the Protestant persuasion.
Presently he left us, going out of the rear
door of his shop, but soon returned, bring-
ing with him a handsome woman of the

IRKUTSK 133

Murillo Madonna type — modest and comely.
It was a case where the course of true love
did not run smooth. This furniture dealer,
a Protestant, had fallen in love with this
beautiful Jewess, whom we had just seen.
An old law of the city requires that such a
marriage must be performed publicly in a
Protestant church, at which time usually an
unruly rabble fill the church to make sport.
However, a merciful proviso exists whereby
this publicity may be avoided. Such a wed-
ding may be private, provided the Jewess
can procure a physician's certificate to the
effect that such a public spectacle would
make her nervous. This legal hitch to their
courtship had just been removed. Their
joyous faces showed clearer than any words
that the coveted physician's certificate had
been promised, so that their future bliss was
now assured.

Friendship of Russians and Americans

Russia is an autocratic beaurocracy.
America, we boast, is "the land of the free."
Somehow or other Russians' seem to exhibit
a very cordial friendship toward Americans.
Senator Beveridge traces this spontaneous
friendship to the complimentary resolution
passed by Congress and conveyed by special
envoy to Emperor Alexander II on account
of his liberating the Russian serfs. Then he
expatiates as follows: "America and Russia

134 STRANGE SIBERIA

have always been friendly. The American
people are a young people, and the Russian
regards himself as quite as young a man as
the American. The American has 'go-ahead'
in his make-up. The American 'gets things
done.' That is what the Russian admires,
and he likes to think that he is doing the
same thing. So there is natural friendship
on the part of Russians for Americans."1

The American, on his part, highly esteems
the Russian for the timely sympathy and
moral support of Alexander II, in the sum-
mer of 1863, when he sent his fleet, under
Admiral Lissoffski, into the harbor of New
York, while we were engaged in a life-and-
death struggle for our existence as a nation.

When darkness hid the starry skies

In war's long winter night,
One ray still cheered our straining eyes,

The far-off Northern Light.

Every American feels deeply indebted to
Russia for her diplomatic foresight in dis-
posing of Russian America before our mani-
fest destiny should have driven her off
American soil, as was the fate of Spain.
Moreover, Americans, endued with intui-
tive Yankee business shrewdness, appreciate
more highly every passing year Russia's un-
bounded liberality in pouring into Uncle
Sam's lap such an untold wealth of precious
gold, copper, coal, and seals, to say nothing

1 The Russian Advance, by Albert J. Beveridge, p. 252.

IRKUTSK 135

of her inestimable good will, manifested by
the transfer of Alaska to the United States.
Of course Senator Beveridge, as an intelli-
gent, loyal American, deeply realized all
this, but doubtless, on account of his official
position, felt constrained from making any
public statement on this point.

Then, again, it is patent to all that to the
oppressed, outraged millions, smarting under
the knout of Russian beaurocracy, America
stands as a symbol for freedom. Naturally,
he regards all Americans whom he chances
to meet as representatives of such freedom,
and cordially treats them as though they
were intimate, sympathetic friends. A Rus-
sian business man, who had shown us several
acts of kindness in Moscow, requested us on
parting to give him our address in America.
On inquiring the reason, he replied that he
might want to call on us in America within
a few years, when he should come over there
to live.

Besides, there are perhaps other impal-
pable but, nevertheless, powerful influences,
which irresistibly attract each to other. We
are inclined to believe the fact that both the
Russian and American are consciously proud
of belonging to a big country, each having to
work out its own "manifest destiny," and
the further fact that we are both Pacific
neighbors, all of which tends to increase this
sincere, unbounded friendliness.

136 STRANGE SIBERIA

A British journalist noticed this peculiar
trait in the make-up of the Russians, as he
traveled in company with some Americans
from Peking to Saint Petersburg, a pecu-
liarity which he tried to explain by Ameri-
cans having donated famine-relief funds.
This Britisher acknowledges that he was
treated civilly, but he naively records how
the Russians "display a special amount of
cordiality and friendship to America and
Americans."1

Such was our experience nearly three
decades ago, when we lodged at Vladivostok
in the home of a Russian naval officer. This
Russian officer seemed especially glad to find
one from the land of freedom to whom he
could open his heart and freely pour out his
tales of grievance in regard to the unseemly
conduct and graft among the Russian no-
bility. So at this German-speaking Russian's
home at Irkutsk we were invited to after-
noon coffee, where we had the privilege of
meeting other German-speaking Russians,
where incidents were related and photo-
graphs shown exhibiting interesting inci-
dents of actual Siberian life.

On the last evening of our stay at Irkutsk
we accepted an invitation to dine at the resi-
dence of a physician. His home was built in
a pine forest on a hillside in the Glasgow sub-

1 From Peking to Petersburg, by Arnot Keld, pp.
210, 211.

IRKUTSK 137

urb, across the Angara. The dwelling was a
capacious bungalow, compactly built of logs,
with their sawn ends projecting at the cor-
ners, as in our quaint, old-fashioned Hotel
Metropole. The interior, however, revealed
an air of comfort, if not luxury. A grand
piano, a gramophone, large canary cages full
of the yellow songsters, bric-a-brac, etc.,
showed the taste of the mistress of the house,
who was temporarily absent on a visit in
Russia proper. Her photograph, which the
doctor so proudly showed us, displayed the
features of a handsome lady, who would
grace and charm any family circle or social
gathering. His .private library was well
stocked with books, chiefly in Russian, Ger-
man, and English, for he had studied medi-
cine in London.

In company with the doctor's brother, we
bade good-by a little after 9 p. m., but it was
not yet very dark, and we strolled through
the pine grove out to the main street and
across the railway and pontoon bridges to
Irkutsk, where we hired a drosky and re-
turned to our hotel, without the excitement
of any garroting experience to relate.

Books and the Bible

Several times, in order to buy postal cards,
photographs, or books, we had stepped in-
side Makoushin's immense bookstore on the
Great Street. Its seven large plate-glass

138 STRANGE SIBERIA

windows made as grand a display as Scrib-
ner's or Brentano's on Fifth Avenue, New
York. The British and Foreign Bible So-
ciety have their stock stored in one part of
this mammoth establishment. Their affable
agent, W. Davidson, chanced to arrive in
Irkutsk while we were there. We are greatly
indebted to him for much valuable informa-
tion as well as for letters of introduction to
some of his friends at Tomsk and elsewhere,
which he volunteered to give us. He highly
recommended the quality of the Russian
baths in Irkutsk, saying that there was a
superior quality in the waters of the Angara
River which made these cheap ablutions par-
ticularly worth taking. He also enthusiasti-
cally urged us to take the all-water route
from Tomsk to Tiumen at the base of the
Urals, thence by rail to Perm on their west-
ern slope, and there board a steamer down
the Kama to the Volga and proceed direct to
Nijni-Novgorod. However, we were already
provided with tickets to Samara on the
Volga, so we decided to postpone such an
extended excursion by water until a later
date.

Unique Honor to the Bible

Russia surpasses all countries in the high
honor which it renders to the Bible. It is
not so well known as it should be, that
throughout the length and breadth of the

IRKUTSK 139

vast Russian empire, the Russian govern-
ment makes no charge whatever for the
transportation by steamer or rail of the
Holy Scriptures. Honor to whom honor is
due ! Neither Christian America or Europe,
nor non-Christian China or Japan, has as yet
risen to such a high degree of honoring the
Bible "without money and without price."
Surely has God said concerning his Word,
"It shall not return unto me void, but it
shall accomplish that which I- please, and it
shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it."
Only the future will reveal how much bless-
ing this praiseworthy reverence for the Word
of God will bring to Russia's millions trudg-
ing wearily along the path of life. May his
Word indeed prove to them all "a lamp unto
their feet and a light unto their path !"

CHAPTER XI

The Jews in Russia

They lived in narrow streets and lanes obscure,
Ghettos and Judengass, in mirk and mire,

Trained In the school of patience to endure
The life of anguish and the death of fire.

— Longfellow.

National Contrasts

Some will doubtless be surprised to know
that Russian laws compel all Jews, with a
few specified exceptions, to live within a
restricted area, called "The Pale of Settle-
ment." This limited territory is about the
size of France and consists of fifteen prov-
inces out of the more than one hundred of
the Russian empire. This land was allotted
to Russia as her share of the spoil after the
political crime of the partition of Poland.
As far as the east is from the west is the
contrast in the treatment by Russia of the
Jewish inhabitants in this "Pale of Settle-
ment" to that by America of the inhabitants
of the Philippines. As spoils of war, the
Philippines fell into the lap of fair Colum-
bia, and that part of Poland with its Jewish
race was snatched by the paws of huge
Russia. The Russian Hebrews live lives of
terror and torture. The Filipinos enjoy a
140

THE JEWS IN RUSSIA 141

widely spread system of popular education
and are being trained to exercise their rights
and abilities in representative government.

Sowing Dragon's Teeth

The chief restrictions imposed upon the
Jews in Russia are enumerated in the fol-
lowing list :

1. Compulsory residence within the "Pale
of Settlement," prohibiting residence in vil-
lages or inside of fifty versts (thirty-three
miles) of the frontier.

2. Restricted education.

3. Prohibition to sell spirits (a govern-
ment monopoly).

4. Closure against government employ-
ment, railway and postal service, higher mili-
tary rank, and from the navy.

5. Special taxes, applicable only to Jews.
There are these exceptions to the above :

1. Merchants, who are members of guilds
and pay an annual tax of about |500 (United
States gold).

2. University graduates and students of
higher grades.

3. Nicolai soldiers, who have served twenty-
five years.

4. Druggists, dentists, surgeons, and mid-
wives.

5. Skilled artisans, supported by their own
handicraft.

As if these arbitrary laws were not suffi-

142 STRANGE SIBERIA

ciently harassing and cruel, the obnoxious
May laws were superimposed. These were
proposed by General Ignatieff, and adopted
after receiving the sanction of the Tsar.
Paragraph III serves as a sample. It reads:

"Jews are forbidden to transact business
on Sundays and on the principal Christian
holidays. The existing regulations concern-
ing the closing of places of business belong-
ing to Christians on such days shall apply
to Jews also."

The proportion of Jews permitted to study
in an institution of learning was curtailed
in many places to five per cent, and in Saint
Petersburg and Moscow to three per cent.

Reaping

This broadcast sowing of dragon's teeth
is already beginning to bear its harvest:

1. Poverty, by being forced into the con-
gested Ghettos of the cities.

2. Ignorance, with its criminal retinue, by
being debarred from education.

3. Political helplessness, by being excluded
from public office and the army and navy,
thus engendering anarchy.

4. Last but not least, the pogroms, or fana-
tical massacres, abetted by the government.
The acts of these frenzied mobs of Russian
Christians resemble those attributed to the
early Pilgrims in their dealings with the
American Indians:

THE JEWS IN RUSSIA 143

They first fell on the knees
And then on the aborigines.

"They (that is, Orthodox Russian Chris-
tians) went to work with the holy pictures
in their hands, crossing themselves and
kneeling in prayer, and then murdered and
robbed mothers with infants in their arms,"
witnesses Leon Rosenberg, of Odessa.1

Samuel Wilkinson, in his exhaustive study
of this subject, ascribes as the motive of this
inhuman persecution of the Jews, "Russia's
treatment of her Jewish subjects was simply
a matter of domestic policy. If she placed
no restrictions upon them, she knew that in
the struggle for existence the lethargic na-
tive-born would go to the wall and the Jew
come out on top."2

The intense gravity of this Jewish problem
among the one hundred and twenty odd races
and tribes within the Russian empire is ap-
parent when a government is driven to
crowd this single detested race of 5,000,000
Hebrews inside the arbitrary artificial bar-
riers of the "Pale of Settlement." Lord
Curzon sagely remarks, "The Russian system
may be government, but cannot be called
improvement or civilization." No wonder,
then, that these Hebrew children, number-
ing one half of the Israelites in the world,

1 la the Land of the North, by Samuel Wilkinson,
p. 47.
» Ibid, p. 24.

144 STRANGE SIBERIA

and downtrodden now as in the days of
Pharaoh, should constitute nine tenths of
the immigrants from Russia to England and
America !

Such are the galling strictures which bind
the Russian Jews, as mercilessly as the
Philistines did their mighty champion, Sam-
son. But history tells how this hero,
blinded and goaded to fury by his enemies,
finally had his revenge. No eagle's eye can
pierce the future and see what fate awaits
the haughty ruling house of Romanoff. Some
day before the sun sets — perhaps sooner than
any of us imagine — persecuted Samson,
driven to desperation, may again rise in his
pristine strength and annihilate his enemies.

CHAPTER XII

Jermak, Immigration and Exiles

What most interested us in Russia was that
it was an empire of discontent. High or low,
official or unofficial, it made no difference; every-
one talked of the unsatisfactory condition of the
country — even General Todleben, the hero of Sevas-
topol and Plevna, who was then the governor-
general of Odessa. It was a result of the Russo-
TurMsh War — a foretaste of what was to follow
the war with Japan. — George Washburn, Fifty
Years in Constantinople, p. 149.

Jemark

Jermak, Yermak, or Irmak, as his name is
variously spelled, presented Siberia to Rus-
sia, as did Cortez and Pizarro, his antipodal
conquistadores, Mexico and Peru to Spain.
Those Cossack and Spaniard outlaws em-
ployed almost simultaneously the same tac-
tics against the indigenes.

The impetuous charges and fierce ardor
of these simple-minded natives, fighting for
wife, children, and native land, were no
match to these infamous freebooters, armed
with strange fire-spitting weapons. Despite
their reckless courage, the field of battle
was again and again strewn with heaps of
their slain braves.

For years Jermak gained great notoriety
145

146 STRANGE SIBERIA

by harassing merchants on "the royal road
of the Volga," often robbing and murdering
his victims, until one day imperial troops
outwitted and captured him. Ivan the Ter-
rible, learning of the prowess of this Cossack
chieftain, pardoned him and then authorized
him to lead a motley crowd of some 850 Rus-
sians, Cossacks, Tartars, Germans, Poles,
and escaped prisoners across the Urals into
Siberia. Jermak marched boldly into the
interior of Siberia and captured Siber or
Isker, the capital of the Siberian dominions.
He consoled the Tsar in his last years by
presenting him with the vast domain of Si-
beria. Ivan sent bishops and priests to the
survivors of the subdued peoples, and re-
warded Jermak with a costly cuirass of ex-
quisite workmanship. This handsome gift
proved his doom. At an unguarded moment
his enemies attacked his forces. He tried to
escape by swimming across the Irtysh, but
the weight of his imperial chain-armor pulled
him under the waters never to rise again.
Jermak was made a hero by the Russian
people and a saint by the Orthodox Church.
An elegant silver statuette of this Cossack
hero, inclosed in a glass case, is one of the
many costly curios on exhibition in the sump-
tuous apartments of the Kremlin Palace at
Moscow, and two paintings represent him on
the walls of the University at Tomsk. In
one, Jermak is seen fiercely combating na-

JERMAK 147

tive tribes on the banks of a river, while
they are paralyzed with terror by the novel
murderous firearms. The other represents
him standing with proud mien, arrayed in
the handsome, fatal cuirass, bestowed upon
him by the Tsar.

From Jermak's day to this the same merci-
less tactics have been systematically pur-
sued. By this relentless policy, thousands
of helpless Chinese were remorselessly
butchered in Manchuria in 1900. General
Skobeleff adopted the same methods in his
conquests in Central Asia. He tried to
justify his atrocious massacre of eight thou-
sand defenseless Tekkes at Geok Tepe, in
1881, on the principle that with Asiatics the
duration of peace is in direct proportion to
the number of the enemy slain. He un-
abashedly declares his policy in these words:
"My system is this — to strike hard and to
keep on hitting until resistance is completely
overcome, then to form ranks, cease slaugh-
ter, and be kind and humane to the prostrate
enemy."1

Vereshchagin

Vereshchagin painted his battle scenes
from a radically different motive from that
which actuated the French artists, whose
martial productions embellish the Palace of
Versailles. They were swept off their feet by

1 Russia in Asia, by Alexis Krause, p. 128.

148 STRANGE SIBERIA

the brilliant victories of Napoleon. French
patriotic enthusiasm inspired them to throw*
a glamour of glory over the gory fields of
slaughter. The tourist is amazed at these
mammoth canvases of war, as he wanders
for nearly a fifth of a mile through the mag-
nificent "Galerie des Batailles" at Ver-
sailles.

Vereshchagin, on the other hand, was a
passionate pleader for peace. His war paint-
ings, in their realistic hellish carnage, so
appal the beholder that he leaves the place
with his soul ever afterward armed with
undying hate against the dread Moloch. War.

•'The fate of Vereshchagin was especially
pitiful, because he had spent his whole life
trying to teach the human race peace, and
had come in his old age to this boiling crater
(Port Arthur) so that he might catch, per-
haps, a final horror, with which to convince
mankind."1 There, on the fatal 13th of April,
1904, in the sixty-third year of his age,
Vereshchagin, Admiral Makaroff, and sixteen
hundred men on the Russian flagship, Petro-
paulovski, in the twinkling of an eye, found a
watery grave.

Vereshchagin's series of twenty paintings,
descriptive of Napoleon's Russian campaign,
now adorning the wralls of the elegant Mu-
seum of Alexander III, at Saint Petersburg,
when exhibited in Berlin in 1897 attracted

iThe Tragedy of Russia, by McCormlck, vol. I, p. 113.

JERMAK 149

great crowds. His brush portrayed the
barbarous sacrilege of Napoleon turning
churches dedicated to the worship of God
into stables for his cavalry and kitchens for
his troops, and also the hideous diabolism of
war, in a most realistic manner. Emperor
William viewed these masterpieces carefully,
and then, singling out two which especially
impressed him, he stood still studying them,
attracted by their freshness and originality.
One was "The Retreat from Petrovski Park,"
in which Napoleon, accompanied by his body-
guard, was riding amid smoldering heaps and
smoking ruins. The other sketched the em-
peror of the French, wrapped in furs, strid-
ing at the head of his generals, over a battle-
field strewn with corpses veiled in snow,
through which protruded mutilated arms,
legs, heads, and feet. The German monarch
turned to the Russian painter and, with
deep emotion, said, "Vos tableaux sont la
meilleure assurance contre la guerre!"1

Vereshchagin, it will be remembered, was
the artist who painted the battle of San
Juan, Cuba, and exhibited it to President
Roosevelt, who had been a participant in
that conflict. Roosevelt criticized the paint-
ing because the foliage in the foreground
was not true to life. So Vereshchagin made
a special trip to San Juan in the summer,
the season in which the battle was fought.

1 Russische Kulturbilder, by Eugen Zabel, p. 91.

150 STRANGE SIBERIA

After this he retouched his painting by add-
ing the brilliant crimson of the poinciana.

"A Pyramid of Skulls" may be a most elo-
quent advocate for peace. What could have
been conceived more expressive of utter
horror, extreme lonesomeness, and appalling
ghastliness than this painting of Veresh-
chagin? There, alone on the dead level of
the desert, where once mortal hate raged in
all its fury, stands piled up a huge pyramid
of human skulls. Overhead evil-omened
birds of prey wearily alight or fitfully flutter
around, as if in quest of more cadavers to
peck at and devour.

Immigration

Ever since the days of Jermak, emigrants
and exiles have been crossing the Urals in a
constantly increasing ratio. Few realize
the immense migration now going on into
Siberia. Statistics state that from January
1 to October 31, 1908, 728,802 persons crossed
from Russia into Siberia, showing an in-
crease of thirty-one per cent over the same
period of 1907, so that now the annual num-
ber must be about a million or more.

Every day we would meet trainloads of
these wanderers, and would watch parties
of them huddled about the Russian plat-
forms in a most pitiable plight. The freight
box cars, in which they were often trans-
ported, had painted on the outside "8 Horses

JERMAK 151

or 40 men." Surely eight or a dozen horses
would have fared much better than those for-
lorn immigrants of varying ages and sexes,
packed together like slaves in a dhow.
Shelves were extemporized on the inner sides
of these cattle cars, on which men, women
with babes, boys and girls herded during the
long dreary months of interrupted travel.
For some special reason unknown to us these
poor unfortunates were left stranded at the
station, while other trains, having right of
way, passed by.

Exiles

The political exiles and convicts looked
far more comfortable. These traveled, to be
sure, under guard, but in fairly decent cars,
and seemed to be properly fed and cared for.
These prison vans on wheels, when seen for
the first time on our way from Irkutsk to
Tomsk, sent a chill, as a draught from a cold
storage room, through our very bones. Every
succeeding car of these miserahles intensified
our horror at this atrocious system of exile.
One day we counted twelve of these crowded
convict cars. Some faces looked brutal and
vicious, while others wore the sad, resigned
look of refined intelligence. Probably such
were political or religious offenders, who
were either betrayed by some indiscreet re-
mark, or who, having tasted of the waters
of life, would obey God rather than man.

152 STRANGE SIBERIA

The sight of such victims of political tyranny
could not but awaken sympathy in the hearts
of Americans and all other lovers of freedom.
Russia has many souls who abominate this
dastardly policy of banishment, which should
have been abolished with the Inquisition in
the Middle Ages. The laws of Russia are
such that no Russian patriot in the press or
at public meeting can long protest with im-
punity against this monstrous repression of
human rights. Count Tolstoy was the
single exception to this rule.

Opportunity of the Painter

No restrictions, strange to say, are placed
upon the painter. His brush can and does
depict the horror and pity of it. No Rus-
sian can look upon "The Remorse of Ivan
the Terrible," by Ryepin, without having the
frailty and wickedness of his imperial rulers
staring him in the face. No one can look
at the painting "Everywhere Is Life," by
Yaroshenko, without bitter animosity in-
stinctively rankling in his breast. Both
paintings are preserved in the famous
Tretyakov Gallery, said to be the choicest
private collection of paintings in the world.
They were collected by the brothers Trety-
akov, and in 1892 presented by them to the
city of Moscow. "The Remorse of Ivan the
Terrible" is the larger of the two and con-
stantly attracts crowds. This talented Rus-

JERMAK 153

sian artist has represented this Muscovite
Nero with terror-stricken visage, frantically
embracing the pallid corpse of his son, whom
in a passion he has just slain. Most graphi-
cally, nay, even sensationally, does this re-
markable painting tell the plain story, that
the Tsar of all the Russias — the Father of
the Orthodox Church — is not only human
but exceedingly sinful — guilty of murder —
and needing the forgiveness of God as much
as his humblest subject. Most excruciat-
ingly revolting and loathsome is this dia-
bolic specter of imperial murder. Unex-
pectedly coming before it, we found our-
selves for the first few moments riveted to
the spot as fixedly as Chipanoff, the mes-
senger of Prince Kourbski from the Polish
camp, whose foot this same Ivan pinned
with his sharp staff to a step of the Red
Staircase. With pigments more glaring
than any with which Titian ever ventured
to embellish his frescoes, Ryepin has placed
upon canvas this spectacular exposure of
heinous guilt in high places. The tragic
remorse of the deed will not down. Anyone
who has once viewed it finds its gruesome,
blood-curdling shadow, like the ghost in Mac-
beth, insistently pursuing him many a long
day and night. Such an artist, whose inner-
most soul is burning with fiery indignation,
dares display an eloquence as patriotic,
though mute, as did Patrick Henry. With

154 STRANGE SIBERIA

one masterstroke he has brushed away the
flimsy fabric of the divine right of kings and
affirmed "Vox populi, vox dei." Such in-
sight into inhuman crime on the throne
haunts like a horrid nightmare the simple-
minded moujik. Such imperial villainy
steels the sinews1 of the infuriated revolu-
tionist to still darker deeds of vindictive
violence.

The other painting, "Everywhere Is Life,"
by Yaroshenko, portrays a less ghastly but
extremely sad event — alas, too common,
from which

Hope, writhing fled, and

Mercy sighed farewell.

A convict car is stopping at a station plat-
form. Inside the iron bars of a car window
is an interesting family trio. The center of
the group is a little boy of three or four
summers, who is eagerly watching some
pigeons outside. One pigeon is perched on
the car roof. Some are flying about, while
others are busy picking up crumbs of black
bread with which the child is feeding them.
The father at one side, whose hand holds the
broken loaf, is pictured with a kindly, in-
telligent countenance.

The free, happy life of these pigeons, gayly
hopping on the platform or gracefully cir-
cling in the air, by their striking contrast
throw a charming soft glow of pathos over
this touching domestic episode at the car

i 4M

t

■ 1

1 M:

Ik A

-' v ^

1

A

ft '§ X

Bi^j^ "^^,» "^

s

- *"ik

Everywhere Is Life

JERMAK 155

window. This is emphatically so, if seen
through Russian eyes. The ancient Egyp-
tians,1 like most modern nations, never re-
garded the pigeon as a sacred bird, but prized
it as a dainty dish. Not so the Russian. He
considers the pigeon as symbolic of the Holy
Ghost, which should be held sacred and
never used as an article of food. Moreover,
every Russian uses, as a term of endearment,
the very common expression, "My little
pigeon !"2

The father in the picture was probably a
well-meaning artisan in a small village, who
had in an unguarded moment dropped some
chance remark about liberty. This had been
overheard and reported to the authorities,
with the result that he was peremptorily sen-
tenced to banishment to Siberia or Saghalien.
The mother has a sweet, resigned expression.
Like so many other Russian wives similarly
situated, she had volunteered to accompany
her husband to his far-off exile, taking along
their only son. An elderly, grizzly whis-
kered moujik, but with benignant look withal,
and a youthful, sleek-looking citizen of the
hounded Hebrew race, both of whom are
deeply absorbed in watching the playful
antics of the innocent boy, complete the
group in the foreground. In the back-
ground, out of the opposite window, is an-

1 The Ancient Egyptians, by Wilkinson, vol. ill.

2 Siberia, As It Is, by DeWindt, p. 66.

156 STRANGE SIBERIA

other exile, wistfully gazing out upon God's
free open and beyond — "everywhere is life."

By such paintings Russian patriots, even
though their mouths are muzzled and their
ankles enchained, can teach the love of free-
dom. These paintings indicate the intense
passion for liberty smoldering in the breasts
of Russia's millions. Violent eruptions, as
of a pent-up Vesuvius, have already taken
place. The extreme propaganda of the Nihil-
ist have been summarily suppressed. "Their
conspiracies and murders," as Dr. Buckley
pertinently states, "have made it necessary
that the government of Russia should be
nothing but a gigantic police force, of which
the emperor is the chief."1 So soon as the
real facts of the repeated defeats by the
Japanese percolated among the masses of
the Russian people, riot and revenge reigned
rampant, recalling the days of "the Reign of
Terror" in France.

Russia has also produced musicians of re-
markable genius. Rubinstein, one of her
musical prodigies, who astounded Moscow at
the age of ten, made the following discrimi-
nating remark toward the close of his fa-
mous career : "In Russia I exist ; in Germany
I think ; in France I enjoy [myself] ; in Italy
and Spain I wander; in America I act; and
everywhere I love."2

irrhe Midnight Sun, The Tsar, and The Nihilist, by
James M. Buckley, p. 370.

3 Kulturbilder, by Zabel, p. 190.

JERMAK 157

Exasperated at the political despotism of
Russia, and admiring the rare artistic genius
of hor sons, Hugo Ganz felt compelled to
utter the following noble sentiment, which
echoes in the heart of every lover of liberty
the world over: "A people which produces
such artists in every field as the Russian,
has not only the right to the strongest self-
consciousness and to the general sympathy
of people of culture, but, above all, it has
the right to be respected by its rulers and
not to be handled like a horde of slaves."1

Religious Liberty

Had the policy of religious liberty, as once
frankly stated by Peter the Great, been con-
sistently carried out, the inhabitants of the
Russian empire would be to-day far more
happy and prosperous. "Passing through
the desert of the Volga, he [Peter the Great]
found there a colony of industrious rasko-
links [dissenters], ordered them to be left
in peace, and begged them to pray for him.
'God,' he said, 'has given the Tsar power
over nations, but Christ alone has power
over the consciences of men.' "2 His loyalty
to the Orthodox Church, however, made him
regard the dissenters as heretics, whom he
often caused to be punished, sometimes most
cruellv.

i The Land of Riddles, by Hugo Ganz, p. 282.
2 History of Russia, by Rambaud, vol. ii, p. 94.

158 STRANGE SIBERIA

The Edict of Alexander I, dated December
6, 1816, breathed the same humane senti-
ment, but proved abortive in stopping perse-
cution. A truly Christian spirit pervaded
this imperial utterance. "To lead back the
lost sheep to the fold cannot be done by
force, this being contrary to the doctrine of
the Saviour, who came to seek and save the
lost. True faith is a work of grace and can
only be effected in the soul by instruction,
gentleness, and, most of all, by good ex-
ample. . . . The church must neither use nor
permit violence against the erring ones, even
if it should not approve of their separation.
It is utterly opposed to the spirit of its
Divine Head."1

On Easter Day, 1905, a new Imperial
Edict of Religious Toleration was ostenta-
tiously granted, but its effects appear to be
as nugatory as Alexander I's, nearly a cen-
tury earlier. An enraged people, exasper-
ated by the disastrous defeats in the Russo-
Japanese war, forced Nicholas II reluctantly
to grant it. Carl Joubert styles it "a Stock
Exchange Ukase," asserting that it was
issued solely to placate the enmity of other
nations, and thus facilitate another foreign
loan.2 In it Nicholas II makes no allusion
whatever to loosening the cruel bonds shack-
ling millions of his Jewish children. The

• Under Three Tsars, by Robert S. Latimer, p. 46.
« The Fall of Tsardom, by Carl Joubert, p. 248.

JERMAK 159

inveterate hatred of the Orthodox Church
and chinoviks also continues to vent itself
on anyone daring enough to free himself
from such spiritual tyranny. Despite these
dark clouds, an unprejudiced observer can
dimly discern glimmerings of hope, presag-
ing a brighter dawn in the near future.

It has been estimated that about a third
of the so-called Orthodox Christians are
secretly or openly attached to these dis-
senters, who "are an index of the devotion
and desire for light in the character of the
true Russian."1

Among these raskolinks, or sects, the fol-
lowing are the chief: (1) Popovsty, or with
priests; (2) Bezpopovsty, or without priests ;
(3) Khlysts, or flagellants, like some Roman
Catholic devotees; (4) Stundists, or Ger-
man Mennonites, so called from their
"Stunde," or hour of devotion; (5) Molo-
kans, or milk eaters; (6) Doukhorborsts, or
Spirit-Warriors, resembling Quakers.

Evangelical Nobility

Persecution has spared neither the high
nor low ranks of Russian society. The case
of Colonel Pashkoff, of the Imperial Guards,
is in point. Belonging to a distinguished
family and possessed of great wealth, he
made a visit to England, and, while there,
imbibed some of the Methodist spirit. On

iLand of the North, by Samuel Wilkinson, p. 19.

160 STRANGE SIBERIA

his return he devoted his whole life and vast
fortune to spreading the truth he had
espoused. The impassioned evangelical
preaching of Lord Radstock, in French, to
the upper classes at Saint Petersburg dur-
ing the successive winters from 1874 to 1877
was also productive of much ripe fruit.
Besides Colonel Pashkoff, two other notable
Russian aristocrats, Count Bobrinski and
Count Korff, joined the ranks of the dis-
senters'. All three began to conduct meet-
ings for prayer and expounding the gospel.
The mansion of Colonel Pashkoff on Gagarin
Quay was crowded with eager hearers of
the Word. The arch enemy of religious
liberty, Pobiedonostzeff, affirmed that "more
than fifteen hundred persons were present,
representing every grade of society."

"Peasants and members of princely fami-
lies, students from the university, and mili-
tary officers, resplendent in their uniforms,
and even monks and priests were among the
crowds that thronged the doors to secure ad-
mission. Madame Pashkoff usually presided
at the American organ, and her daughters
helped to lead in the singing. The hymns
were Russian versions of familiar English
hymns, adapted to the tastes of the Russian
people. All three of the above-mentioned
noblemen gave expositions of the Scriptures
and addresses, each having his distinctive
gifts as a public speaker. Colonel Pashkoff

JERMAK 161

was mighty in the Scriptures, and arrested
the attention of his hearers by his earnest
and forcible utterances; Count Korff ap-
pealed mainly to the intelligence of his
hearers ; while Count Bobrinski, who earned
the name of 'the Spurgeon of Russia/ spoke
with great vivacity and freedom.

"In summer these noblemen repaired to
their estates in the country, where they
opened their castles to the astonished peas-
ants for the preaching of the gospel of Christ.
The good news would have been 'as cold
waters to a thirsty soul,' even if brought to
them in an earthen pitcher by a hunted
Stundist, but to have the water of life prof-
fered to these sheepskin-clad moujiks in
silver tankards was every way most sensa-
tional."1

Pobiedonostzeff, though a layman, was at
this time the head of "the Most Holy Gov-
erning Synod of the Orthodox Church." An
implacable bigot, like Philip II of Spain, or
his prototype, Saul of Tarsus, "breathing
out threatenings and slaughter," he deter-
mined to extinguish this rapidly growing
heresy. Soon an order was issued for the
banishment of the chief offenders, who were
given ten days to pack up and quit their
native land. Colonel Pashkoff, with the
other leaders, was banished, his institutions
destroyed, and a large part of his estates con-

1 Under Three Tsars, by Robert S. Latimer, pp. 74, 75.

162 STRANGE SIBERIA

fiscated, while he, himself, died in 1902, an
exile in Paris.1

Milk Eaters

The Molokans, or "Milk Eaters," receive
this nickname because the members of this
sect would eat curds and cheese on fast days
The same as on other days, and also because
they abstain from vodka — the popular alco-
holic drink of the Russian peasant — and con-
tent themselves with drinking milk. They
cheerfully accept the term, saying: "Yes!
We are indeed milk eaters. We desire 'the
sincere milk of the Word, that we may grow
thereby.' We must have it unadulterated —
uncontaminated by the fingers of the Popes
and undiluted by any mixture of man's de-
vices; and we will have as much as we can
get of it, for we love our Bibles."2 The
Molokans are very friendly toward other
evangelical Christians. Dr. G. A. Simons, of
the Methodist Episcopal Mission at Saint
Petersburg, was recently in southern Russia,
where by invitation he attended their meet-
ings and acceded to their request to be photo-
graphed in the midst of their group of dele-
gates. The mighty pen of Count Tolstoy was
wielded in behalf of the Molokans and Douk-
horborsts, but apparently not one iota did the
government abate its bitter antagonism.

i Russia, Her Strength and Weakness, by Wolf von
Schierbrand, pp. 210, 211.

2Under Three Tsars, by Robert S. Latimer, pp. 38, 39.

JERMAK 163

Spirit-Warriors

Hemmed in on either side and relentlessly
pursued by the oppressor, the situation of
the Doukhorborsts did, indeed, seem to be
as desperate as the Israelites, pursued by
Pharaoh's hosts. Their plaintive cries, how-
ever, reached the ears of the Almighty, who
from an unexpected quarter raised up for
them deliverers. Wealthy and influential
philanthropists in England and America
provided a way of escape across their Red
Sea of difficulty to the broad fertile prairies
of Canada. At first their advent on Ameri-
can soil caused great forebodings among the
Canadian authorities, until in 1902 a former
popular leader, Peter Veregin, or "Father
Vereguine," was released from prison in
Russia and arrived in Canada. By kindli-
ness and ability he gained their confidence,
and soon brought order out of chaos, peace
out of discord. His shrewd leadership sys-
tematized their life. A miniature Parlia-
ment was organized, composed of two men
and one woman out of each of their forty-
eight villages, which had authority over all
their affairs. Veregin's personality as presi-
dent of this body asserted itself in directing
decisions according to his superior wisdom.
Every spring and fall, agents of the Douk-
horbor Trading Company visit Winnipeg to
buy stores at wholesale rates for cash and

164 STRANGE SIBERIA

thus save fully twenty-five per cent. Some-
times these agents spend $100,000 to $150,-
000 on one trip. They implicitly follow the
instructions of Father Vereguine's commit-
tee, and on their return render a strict ac-
count. One specimen list is as follows :

100 Teams of Draft Horses.
25 Wagons.
62 Plows.
38 Mowers.
52 Self-Binders.
30,000 lbs. Binding Twine.
350 Sets Harness.

Machinery for one Oatmeal Mill.
Machinery for four Flour Mills.
1 Telephone System.
12 Wheat and Flax Elevators.

In 1909 the Dominion Interior Depart-
ment published an Annual Report concern-
ing this sect of Russian Quakers, who in
1898, to the number of some 10,000, found an
asylum within their borders. This official
document, far from regarding the Douk-
horborsts as a thorn in the flesh, asserts that
none of their neighbors, not even the increas-
ing American contingent, surpass them in
industry, frugality, and general desirability
as settlers.1

Raskolinks

The rabid bigotry of the Holy Orthodox
Church was not content with hunting Rus-

JThe Evening Post, New York, May 23, 1909.

JERMAK 165

sian raskolinks — not rascals or rascallions,
as some might infer from the etymology of
the word, but merely dissenters — within her
own borders, but vented her spite against
any foreign ones, who might have only a
simple "Reverend" or the more dignified
"Bishop" prefixed to their names. At the
time the Trans-Siberian Railway was opened
to travel Russian officialdom in their narrow
prejudice absolutely refused to allow any
such raskolinks to travel on their transcon-
tinental trains.1 However, God is no re-
specter of persons* whether a Pharaoh or a
Tsar. The rude shock of the Russo-Japanese
war was needed to arouse Russia to a more
liberal policy. In 1894-5, during the Chi-
nese-Japanese war, Russia refused to grant
passports to American missionaries living
at Kalgan, where a spur of the Great Wall
divides China from Mongolia. The Ameri-
can government at Washington took up the
matter with the Russian government at
Saint Petersburg and thrashed it out, until
finally passports were promised in case ex-
treme danger in China should compel the
American missionaries to escape via Siberia.
The Boxer uprising in 1900 furnished the
occasion, when a party of various nationali-
ties succeeded in making "A Flight for Life"
to Irkutsk and thence over the Trans-Si-

1 China and Her People, by Charles Denby, vol. I,
p. 225.

166 STRANGE SIBERIA

berian Railway to Europe and home.1
While this restriction was still in force
Bishop Cranston, of the Methodist Episcopal
Church, now residing at Washington, D. C,
happened to be on a visit at Vladivostok.
He desired to take a short ride on the eastern
section of the Russian railway, but was pre-
vented because he was an American clergy-
man. To-day all is changed. Now citizens
of any nation, provided with passports — no
matter of what religious creed — may freely
travel from one end of the Russian empire
to the other. The world moves and Russia
too, though reluctantly with laggard gait,
as of a tired, peevish child, who is being
dragged along by his mother.

Political Liberty

Much confusion prevails concerning the
political liberty of the freed serf in Russia.
"From the moment when, with so loud a
flourish of trumpets, Alexander II decreed
the emancipation of the serfs, nothing has
been done to train, educate, or raise this
miserable people from their degradation.
While hundreds of millions had been spent
in the indulgence in the craze for militarism
and conquest, inherent in the one class (chi-
noviks), which is consulted in the country,
the moujiks have been retrograded rather
than assisted in emerging from the con-

iA Flight for Life, by James H. Roberta.

JERMAK 167

ditions of mere animal existence. A tithe of
the money expended in the exploitation of
Manchuria, the sending of secret missions to
Afghanistan, and the fleecing of territory
from Persia and the Khanates of Central
Asia, would have sufficed for the enlighten-
ment of the Russians, the emancipation of
the country from its primitive civilization,
and the introduction of education through-
out the territories of the Tsar."1

The liberty granted to the American
Negro by the Emancipation Proclamation
of Abraham Lincoln was as wide as the poles
from that granted by the Imperial Ukase
of Alexander II. As in feudal times, the
serf remained attached to the soil, osten-
sibly that he might be available for military
service. Government bonds were presented
to his former baronial landlords, but not
a single kopek nor one square foot of land
was given to the poor ex-serf. Any "Rus-
sian serf who leaves the village-commune
without permission to-day is arrested, fined,
imprisoned, and sent back to his native
place. ... In many cases the position of the
peasant is hopeless. At present the peasant
cannot, without consent of his commune,
work for wages. From the wages of peas-
ants, permitted to work in mines, factories,
and industrial works, a part may be de-

1 Russia in Asia, by Alexis Krause, pp. 286, 287.

168 STRANGE SIBERIA

ducted and paid to the government on ac-
count of their commune's indebtedness under
the land-redemption scheme. . . . The con-
ditions are such as preclude the creation of
wealth by the people and deprive them of

hope and legitimate aspirations He is

born to a heritage of debt and saddled with
an incubus from which he can free himself
in no other way than by emigrating."1

If these millions of Slavic men "with the
hoe" — wageless and hopeless through so
long a night of horrid darkness — now descry
a faint ray of hope on their far eastern
horizon, need we wonder to find them with
wives and little ones — all they can call their
own — start for that far-away land, even if
it be the dreaded, ill-famed Siberia of the
exiles? Tolstoy, ever sympathizing with the
peasants in their misery, in his last work,
Three Days in a Village, suppressed by the
government after a few copies had found
their way to America, depicts a Russian
peasant, lured by the call of the wild, sell-
ing his patrimony and emigrating with his
family to Siberia. Disillusioned there, he
returns to his ancestral village, only to find
himself homeless, landless, hopeless.

In order to overcome the stupid inertia of
ages, special inducements had to be offered.
Since 1892 emigrants, on certain conditions,

1 Greater Russia, by William Oliver Greener, edition
1904, pp. 45-47.

JERMAK 169

receive per head a grant of fifteen dessiatins
(about forty acres) of land, every man,
woman, and child counting. In addition,
they are tax free for the first three years,
and one half tax free for the following three
years, thus making them liable to the full
levy at the beginning of the seventh year.
Besides, all young men are permitted to post-
pone their military service for three years
(that is, until the farm is in order) and,
moreover, to the poorest classes, small loans
and grants of seeds and timber are made.1

"Liberty, Equality, Fraternity!" were the
loud cries rending the air during the French
Revolution, when the frenzied Jacobin mobs,
intoxicated with the first draughts of liberty,
paraded the streets of Paris. To the slug-
gish, century-oppressed minds and bodies of
these emancipated serfs, such sentiments
sound as far distant as the planet Mars.
Not many decades, however, will elapse be-
fore Siberia, with its greater though limited
freedom, will demand its long-denied rights
— those inalienable rights of man — which
made the Paris mob run riot, and which
Thomas Jefferson embodied in the Constitu-
tion of the United States in the modified
form of "life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness." A marked contrast is already
noticeable in the people of Siberia from the

1The Coming Struggle in Eastern Asia, by Putnam-
Weale, pp. 264, 265.

170 STRANGE SIBERIA

Russians on the other side of the Urals.
Men who undergo exile for their political
and religious opinions have usually deep
convictions, so that their new and freer en-
vironment enables them to breathe the air
of greater independence. Some predict that
"in time these facts will tell, and things
will occur which may change the trend of
affairs in a moment, which will surprise no
one more than the authorities at Saint
Petersburg."1

Russian and American Pioneers Compared
Any attempted parallel between the pio-
neers of American civilization westward
and Russian eastward is both gratuitous and
futile. The character of the American pio-
neers, with their accompanying civilization,
is diametrically opposite. The winning of
the Mississippi valley, the gaining of Cali-
fornia, and the saving of Oregon to the
Union were accomplished by men of a radi-
cally different type. Siberia can boast of
no Daniel Boone, Colonel Fremont, nor
Marcus Whitman. Outlaws, exiles, convicts,
and moujiks have laid the foundations of an
entirely opposite social fabric. Religions
liberty and the schoolhouse have produced
very dissimilar farmers, merchants, and
artisans from those under the persuasion of
the icon and the knout.

1 Russia in Asia, by Alexis Krause, p. 320.

JERMAK 171

Siberia has not always proved to be the
rosy-hued Utopia of their dreams. Its long,
dark, cheerless winters and short summers
do not always compensate for the milder
climes and charming shores of the Euxine.
One wide-awake, widely traveled investigator
believes that "the extreme loneliness of the
life and the length of the winter are pro-
ducing a peculiar Siberian type of people —
silent, morose, and inexpressibly sad."1

The moujik, starting from the fertile
valleys of the Dnieper, Don, and Volga,
sometimes keeps moving on his eastward
tramp until he stands on the shores of the
Pacific or the Gulf of Pechili, for he has not
yet reached the land of promise. He is still
restive, dissatisfied, so that we find him wist-
fully watching and waiting on those distant
shores, eager to sail away to a land about
which strange rumors of real liberty have
reached his ears. Surely no one need be
surprised at reading the cablegram, pub-
lished in a New York daily, dated October
22, 1909: "The immigration agent who ac-
companied Commander Atkinson to Man-
churia to secure Russians to take the place
of Japanese laborers on sugar plantations in
Hawaii says over 100,000 Russian peasants
in Manchuria want to come to Hawaii.
Hundreds of families pleaded for a chance

1 All the Russlas, by Henry Norman, pp. 152, 153.

172 STRANGE SIBERIA

when Atkinson selected thirty families to
come over. Those people cannot make a liv-
ing in Siberia. Some Russians who accom-
panied Atkinson were veterans of the late
war between Russia and Japan."1

Just two months earlier Colonel Rudolph
Jasenski, of the Fourth Battery Siberian
Artillery, who had seen service at Port
Arthur, arrived at Ellis Island, New York,
having crossed the Atlantic in the steerage
of the Cunarder Mauretania. A reporter of
the New York Times gives this account of
the arrival of this Russian officer in Amer-
ica: "Before leaving Russia," the Colonel
said, "I resigned my commission and told
the government officials that I should not
return. I am alone in this city and have no
friends, but I hope to get some kind of em-
ployment, and am willing to become a
citizen, as I prefer the United States to any
other foreign country to settle in. ... I will
not return to Russia, no matter what hap-
pens. I speak French and, of course, my
native language, but I cannot speak English,
although I can read and write it — an accom-
plishment I acquired in the Military College
at Saint Petersburg."2

The novel sensations which an ordinary
Russian immigrant experiences on his first
arrival in New York have been vividly

xThe New York Sun, October 23, 1909.
•The New York Times, August 23, 1909.

JERMAK 173

sketched by one of his most observant and
ardent admirers: "My Russian friend,
amazed, as he was, by the turmoil of the
streets and the height of the buildings, is
still more awed by the sight of such abun-
dant and wholesome food, to which he may
help himself without stint. There are large
sweet potatoes, which taste better than cakes
and are permeated by the delicate flavor of
nuts; they are a greater contrast to the
small, gnarly scant portion of potatoes
which it has been his lot to eat, than any
forty-story sky-scraper can be to the tumble-
down shanty in which his father kept store.
Meat — a huge piece of meat on his plate —
and in memory of his palate only the soft
end of a soup-bone, as a special delicacy.
What a contrast! 'Last but not least/ the
pie, that apple pie, of which he had a whole
one to himself and knew not how to attack
if; until, finally, following good precedent,
he took it into his trembling hands and let
his joyous face disappear in i.ts juicy depths.
After the dinner he was catechized. All the
inhabitants of the far-away town were in-
quired after, and the record of the living and
dead told to the hungry hearers. What a
marvelous group this is! And typical of
thousands."1

1 On the Trail of the Immigrant, by Edward A.
Steiner, pp. 158, 159.

CHAPTER XIII

Tomsk

We reached Tomsk at two o'clock in the morn-
ing, but did not stop. Beyond Tomsk there is a
river to cross — the Tom, of course, unfordable
and unbridged. There is a ferryboat with paddles,
worked by horses, walking round in a circle on
the deck — a sort of bateau a cheval. But the ferry-
man is a Siberian. — Antonio Scarfoglio, Round
the World in a Motor-Car, p. 298.

Railway to Tomsk

A two days' ride by rail brought us from
Irkutsk via Taiga to Tomsk, the capital of
Siberia. During this part of the trip the
cars were uncomfortably crowded. "Platz-
karten," or reserved berths, were not hon-
ored. Through the courtesy of our friend,
the Russian physician, who went early to the
railway station and secured for us reserved
berths, we were provided with proper tick-
ets, but they proved to be of no use. I was
ordered by the conductor to leave our re-
served quarters, where I was with my wife
and babe, and was assigned to a coupe' for
men only. A Russian lady and her daughter,
and an English maid to a British dowager,
were my wife's companions, while a Russian
Jew, a Japanese, and a Hongkong Britisher
174

TOMSK 175

occupied the three other berths of my coupe"
— a typical illustration of the cosmopolitan
nature of the travel on this popular overland
highway. During the night this Japanese
had a constant skirmish over the matter of
ventilation with the American occupying the
opposite berth. That Far Easterner wanted
the coupe" hermetically sealed, while the
Westerner desired a change of air. Before
the first night was over the Japanese re-
treated from the renewed attacks of the
American, who kept opening the coupe' door
a little, as often as the Japanese had closed
it, until finally, out of courtesy or despair, he
gave up the contest, and indulged in that
sound sleep that usually comes before aris-
ing. The following night a Yankee stratagem
outwitted the enemy, affording both a cessa-
tion of hostilities and ample ventilation all
night long. The upper sash was opened a
few inches, but was concealed by pulling
down the inside shade, so that this ruse
proved to be a perfect triumph of the Occi-
dent over the Orient.

The congested condition of travel was due
to the "Compagnie Internationale des
Wagons Lits" neglecting to attach one of
their cars to this Saint Petersburg express
at Harbin, as had been promised by their
agent to a party of Americans, so that they
were all crowded into the cars of our Russian
State Express. Their telegrams to Vladivo-

176 STRANGE SIBERIA

stok and expostulations to the railway offi-
cials were all of no avail. Two of the party
had paid extra fare for reserving a four-
berth compartment for their exclusive use.
Notwithstanding this, two other passengers,
Russians, were assigned to it, and since these
Americans could not make the officials under-
stand, all their protestations and explana-
tions proved futile. At Krasnoyarsk an old,
dingy "Wagons Lits" car was attached to
our train, relieving somewhat the conges-
tion, though its American occupants com-
plained of its superfluous dirt and dust.

On four different through expresses we
met Japanese of the cultured and official
class, generally traveling by twos. Were
they imitating Caleb and Joshua, spying the
enemy's land? Wherever we met the China-
man and accosted him in his native tongue
he always showed a beaming countenance,
radiant with joy, whether acting as a trained
linguistic waiter on the dining car or as
dealer in tea in his own shop at Tomsk,
Irkutsk, or other cities, or as itinerant vender
on the streets, or as travelers in small com-
panies on the trains as far west as Samara
on the Volga.

After leaving Irkutsk the old Siberian
post-road could occasionally be seen, some-
time on one side of the track and sometimes
on the other, recalling the seventies in
America, when the "prairie schooner" trail

TOMSK 177

was easily recognizable by the side of
American transcontinental railroad tracks,
from Omaha to California.

Both days the train passed through varie-
gated scenery. Now dense forests of pine,
fir, cedar, larch, and birch, the latter just
beginning to leaf out in their fresh feathery
green. Again, passing along clearings, we
would see some miserable-looking villages of
log cabins, and we would wonder how these
poor peasants ever managed to eke out a
living during such a short summer season.
In some fields peasants were busy starting
their spring plowing. In shady nooks, in
valleys, and by the banks of streams patches
of ice and snow were still to be seen, while
amid the rank, grassy growth of the steppes
wild flowers were blooming in rich profusion,
beautifying the landscape with their bright
colors. It was a real delight to recognize
the familiar dandelions, buttercups, and
cowslips of the homeland, besides large
patches of the daring blue borage with its
pinkish buds. The flora seemed to be fully
a month behind that of our home in north
China.

Fifteen miles north of the 1,560-feet long
bridge over the Oka are cliffs, sculptured
with prehistoric figures different from any
in western Europe.1 After our train had

1 Greater Russia, by William Oliver Greener, p. T4.

178 STRANGE SIBERIA

crossed over the Birjussa, with its golden
sands, we left the jurisdiction of Irkutsk and
entered the province of Yeniseisk.

Yenisei River

Toward sunset on the afternoon of May 26
our train crossed over some islands in the
mighty Yenisei Eiver and halted at the colos-
sal electric-lighted depot of Krasnoyarsk.
In the early twilight the city, with its numer-
ous buildings and high-pointed towers, pre-
sented a very attractive appearance. Kras-
noyarsk has a population of some fifty thou-
sand, and is capital of the province of
Yeniseisk, which is more than half as large
as all European Eussia. It is beautifully
situated on the left bank of the broad
Yenisei, which here is divided by islands into
several streams. The Yenisei Kiver is the
largest in Asia, and opposite the city of
Krasnoyarsk is about half a mile wide. It
rises in the tablelands of Mongolia, five thou-
sand feet above sea level, and flows some
three thousand miles before emptying into
the Arctic Ocean. Several interesting excur-
sions can be made from Krasnoyarsk as a
center. By steamboat or post-road the
traveler can go northward two hundred miles
to the city Yeniseisk and enjoy the strange
sights of the town or inspect its museum.
If he has four or five days at his disposal, it
would well repay him to make a trip to the

TOMSK 179

Tyrolese-looking town of Minusinsk; and if
he travels by steamer, the steep cliffs along
the banks will call forth his admiration. Its
citv museum, containing over sixty thousand
objects, well merits studying, as well as do
the inhabitants themselves, along with the
shepherds and farmers, the miners and hun-
ters in their grotesque costumes strolling
through the streets. A shorter outing may
be taken to the interesting village of Bas-
aicha, noted for its rock formations, com-
posed of gigantic stone columns. There they
stand, as the fossilized ruins of a prehistoric
organ, like the Giants' Causeway in Ireland.
A British physician, who crossed the
Yenisei seven years before the days of rail-
way travel, describes the salient features of
the traffic at that time. "Old topers would
have been filled with a hankering desire at
the sight of a caravan, which had just
crossed the river — a caravan of vodka, great
hogsheads on wheels, conveying to the settle-
ments of eastern Siberia the strong rye-
spirit of which Russians are so fond, and
which so ill repays their fondness. Mem-
bers of temperance societies would have
been delighted to see there, waiting to cross
over, a caravan of nearly a hundred cart-
loads of tea on its way from China to Europe.
Those who were too whimsical to look with
any favor upon tea might yet find satisfac-
tion in thinking of that simpler beverage, of

180 STRANGE SIBERIA

which they had such an inexhaustible supply
in the clear, cold waters of the river."1

The costly, substantial bridge on which
the railway crosses the Yenisei has changed
all this. Dynamite would have blown this
fine structure into atoms and travel would
once more have reverted to the slow, old-
fashioned way, had not the reckless revolu-
tionist been dissuaded from his design, when
von Plevne was blown to pieces instead.2

Taiga

The sun was bright and the air clear and
bracing on the morning of May 27 when, at
10 :45 a. mv we left the Saint Petersburg
express at the junction Taiga, for Tomsk,
sixty miles northward off the main line,
through this primitive forest, as the word
"Taiga" signifies. Somehow or other, this
small clearing in the midst of this "forest
primeval" of Siberia did not kindle in our
breasts any such romantic sentiments as in-
spired Longfellow, when he indited his im-
mortal poem, "Evangeline." After a delay
of only fifteen minutes we were on a branch
line bound thither. The almost interminable
stretches of forest, "sad and prophetic,"
whose solemnity was now and then relieved
by recent clearings, pall on one's spirit. The

1 Four Thousand Miles Across Siberia, by Charles
Wenyon, M.D., p. 212.

2 Russia from Within, by Alexander Ular, p. 12.

TOMSK 1S1

superstitions natives believe there is a spirit
which haunts these deep forest shades, and
try to propitiate it with offerings. Kant was
a renowned philosopher, but no traveler, for
his biographer states that he never wan-
dered farther from his home at Konigsberg
than Pillau, thirty miles distant. Kant once
said, "Two things there are that always fill
me with awe: the starry heavens above and
the moral consciousness within," but Kant
had never seen the Taiga.

The melancholy monotony of the three
hours' ride was broken by occasional glances
at the Siberian settlers, gathered at the sta-
tions in the clearings, conspicuous for their
numerous stumps and few log cabins. They
had country produce, such as eggs, bread,
and bottles of milk, and also vodka for sale.

Among all these Siberian maidens one
could not pick out one as charming as the
devoted heroine of Grand Pre, Arcadie.
These buxom damsels evidently did not in-
herit those chivalric traits exhibited by the
early French settlers in Nova Scotia, whose
ancestors loved to listen to romantic legends,
recounted by roving troubadors. They, like
their ancestors along the Dnieper and Don,
had daily to drudge in their izbas or out in
the fields. Poetry, romance, and love seldom
if ever brightened their dull days of toil.
When the maiden became a mother, and her
babe was wailing or restless, it was quieted

182 STRANGE SIBERIA

by a decoction of crude opium, obtained from
the exuding juice of the poppy, which is to
be found in every Russian shanty.1

Tomsk

A neat, white depot in a beautiful grove
of white birch awaits the traveler on his
arrival at the station of Tomsk. This thriv-
ing capital of Siberia boasts of its fine uni-
versity, two hundred and ten factories, and
four banks. We did not loiter long at the
station, but, hiring two droskies, rode at
once to the city, some two miles distant.

Herds of cattle were browsing on the
tender, rich grass under the birches in the
park. The street, running northward toward
the city, as we neared the suburbs, passed by
large, handsome red brick buildings, sur-
rounded with spacious premises on a natural
rise of ground ; these were technical schools,
connected with the railway. The thorough-
fare, emerging from the forest park, becomes
a broad boulevard with sidewalks and two
roadways, separated in the middle by elon-
gated grassy plots, planted with poplars and
provided with paths and benches for pedes-
trians. This highway had been paved in
1904, and the main or "Post Office Street,"
where are the university and chief hotels,
last year, while work in paving its western

1 Russia, Her Strength and Weakness, by Wolf von
Schiexbrand, p. 204.

TOMSK 183

extension was still in progress. Many of the
sidewalks were paved with boards, recalling
streets in Chicago before the great fire.

The Russian drosky-driver is a regular
Jehu. He loves to make his horse dash ahead
on a breakneck gallop. The Society for the
Prevention of Cruelty to Animals might do a
thriving business in Siberia and Russia.
Their reckless driving so wrought upon the
sensitive feelings of "The Lady of the Deco-
ration," that she exclaims : "If their cruelty
to horses is any criterion of their cruelty to
their fellow men, I can't help feeling they
deserve their punishment [defeat by the
Japanese]. The Chinese and Korean, even
in their brutality, are not as bad as the ordi-
nary Russian."1

Certain it is that if one does not want to
run the risk of having himself or his baggage
upset he must first learn this indispensable
phrase, "Po-yes-shai medlenno!" ("Drive
slowly!") As it was, our forward drosky,
carrying our valises, had scarcely started be-
fore, when to our dismay, we beheld our light
wicker suitcase go bouncing up into the air
and fall down on the roadway — strange to
say, without bursting and scattering its con-
tents on the ground.

The great number and superior quality of
horses, harnessed to private equipages as

lrThe Lady of the Decoration, pp. 87, 88.

184 STRANGE SIBERIA

well as to droskies for hire, had attracted
our attention, so that we were not surprised
to learn that horse-breeding was quite a
profitable industry in the outlying farms.
We were, however, surprised to see so many
droskies having rubber tires. Carriage hire
is cheap at Tomsk. Forty kopeks is the
charge for the first hour, and thirty kopeks
for each following hour, while twenty kopeks
(or ten cents, United States gold) is the
usual fare for a short ride.

Arriving at the Hotel Rossiya (or "Rus-
sia"), we found that rooms had been reserved
for us, as had been requested by telegram.
The obsequious, incessantly bowing hotel
clerk, dressed in a swallow-tail suit, but
whose linguistic attainments were limited to
the Russian language, received us most ur-
banely and escorted us to the rooms. They
appeared too grandiose for our democratic
taste, so we were shown other apartments,
and finally selected a large room over-looking
a residential street, one flight up and pro-
vided with two windows. One of these was a
French sash-window, or glass door, opening
out upon a small balcony over the street.
One third of this room was screened off by a
wooden partition and curtains, and con-
tained two beds, while there was fine furni-
ture, as of a parlor, in the remaining living
room. We partook of the regulation dinner
of four courses, served in our room. During

TOMSK 185

the daytime the southern, sunny exposure
made the room pleasantly warm, but toward
night the air became so cool that we found it
conducive to our comfort to have the large
brick ofen heated.

Our steady progress homeward was again
made evident, soon after our arrival, by our
home mail, brought by a servant to our
room. It included the Outlook of New
York, dated May 8, and a letter from the
same city of May 10. It seemed almost a
dream, that here in the capital of Siberia
we should be reading home news written
about a fortnight earlier.

One of our first walks was toward the
heart of the city, passing by large retail
stores with plate-glass windows to the mam-
moth book and printing establishment of
Makoushin, to whose great branch store at
Irkutsk reference has already been made.
We made a call upon the family, to whom we
had a letter of introduction, and were cor-
dially invited to an evening dinner, which
we declined, but accepted an invitation to an
afternoon tea.

Upon a long table the ubiquitous samovar
proudly towered over the lavish tempting
array of delicious homemade buns, rusks,
cakes, thinly cut bread, choice Siberian but-
ter and cheese, sliced ham, fresh apples,
oranges, etc., too numerous to mention. Rus-
sian hospitality is proverbial, and here, as

186 STRANGE SIBERIA

elsewhere, we heartily enjoyed not only the
dainty food but also the good cheer of our
hosts. Their spacious apartments revealed a
cultured taste and an air of comfort. The
floor was of hard wood, over which beautiful
rugs were spread, while a piano, books, pic-
tures, and bric-a-brac added an element of
hominess. Mr. and Mrs. Makoushin with
their fifteen-year-old son were present. The
father was a prosperous Siberian merchant
of hardy, patriarchal build and affable man-
ner. He could speak only Russian, while
his wife could converse in German, as well
as in her native tongue. The son could speak
English quite well and French also. He was
expecting to go in two weeks to Paris in
order to pass an entrance examination for
the Lyce'e. This young man later acted as
cicerone to us on several of our outings.

Women with Careers

The daughter, we were told, was just com-
pleting her law course in Paris. Like Dr.
Louise Robinovitch and many other Russian
young ladies, she was preparing for a career
of usefulness. It will be remembered that
Dr. Louise Robinovitch, a native of Odessa,
Russia, recently astonished the medical
world by her novel discovery of electrical
anaesthesia, successfully tried in a hospital
at Hartford, Connecticut. Her treatment
consisted in passing an electric current of

TOMSK 187

low tension and frequent interruption
through the brain of the patient, thereby
producing sleep, and so dispensing with
drugs as anaesthetics.1

Women in Russia have to be reckoned with,
whether on or off the throne, foreign or na-
tive, Catherine II, or Sophie Perovskaya,2
Catherine Breshkovsky, or Dr. Louise Robin-
ovitch, or the thousands of earnest, unnamed,
self-renunciating women of learning, who go
from town to village, teaching the poor igno-
rant peasant the first principles of liberty
and human rights. A keen German observer
recently said : "The young women in Russia
are more frequently than anywhere else
possessed with a life-ideal. I would often
hear them say, 'I will not live a useless life,
merely going from one corner of the room to
the other.' Then also girls of respectable
houses, and, indeed, married women, espouse
a career, in order, as far as in them lies, to
help in the support of the family. In no
country of Europe is there to be found
among the young people such a striving to
make themselves useful, and to exert them-
selves for the welfare of mankind, so as to
have those around them free and happy.
This ideal of helpfulness has been dominant

1 Harper's Weekly, March 5, 1910.

2 The most famous woman revolutionist, belonging
to the highest nobility, and the first woman to die on
the scaffold in Russia for a political offense.

188 STRANGE SIBERIA

for some forty years. Young ladies who at
home keep in their stables ponies — half Eng-
lish thoroughbred — have these later years
gone away into the dangerous famine dis-
tricts and distributed bread to the famish-
ing/'1 Such is the fervent, loving, loyal spirit
of young womanhood in Russia to-day.

The Black Hundred

One afternoon, as we were out riding near
the public square, young Makoushin pointed
out the governor's residence — a low, quaint
bungalow — which had been plundered by the
"Black Hundred" in 1905, during those dark
days of blood and loot. His uncle held the
office of governor at that time, "but," he in-
formed us, "they did not kill him." He also
showed us the extensive gutted brick build-
ings of the Trans-Siberian Railway and the
adjoining theater, which the same mob of
rioters had set on fire, after looting the
vaults of the railway company. Those were
exciting times, as the days of the auto-da-
fe in Madrid, Spain. The brutal official
butcheries at Kishinev were perpetrated by
this same secret society, the "Black Hun-
dred." "Men were burned alive by the hun-
dred in Tomsk ; women were cruelly tortured
in Odessa, . . . and there were more men,
women, and children killed in that one city

i Russland in XX Jahrhundert, by M. L. Schlesinger,
Berlin, 1908.

TOMSK 189

in the course of a single month than in all
France during the great Revolution."1

This "Black Hundred" was an association
of rascals, which a patriotic Russian curtly
informed us was "like Tammany, New York,
you know." This secret organization was
used by the governmental party to counter-
act the efforts of the Revolutionists, and is
also called "The Union of the True Russian
People."2

University of Tomsk

The University of Tomsk — the only uni-
versity in all Siberia — is finely located on
the main street, near the center of the city.
It has a well-kept campus in front of its
main buildings. The grassy border of the
wide sidewalk outside the campus was
planted in an economical and, to us, novel
way. There were two rows of poplar trees.
The inner row had been allowed free growth
until the trees had attained a height of about
thirty feet. Then the upper section of ten
feet had been lopped off and planted, as is
done with willow-saplings, on the outer edge
of the grass-plot, forming the second row of
shade trees. Both of these rows seemed to
be flourishing.

The largest and, in some respects, the most

1 Dr. Dillon, In the Contemporary Review, December,
1905, p. 888.

2 The Reaction in Russia, by George Kennan, In the
Century, June and July, 1910.

190 STRANGE SIBERIA

imposing and substantial buildings in Tomsk
are the University buildings. Its new large
technical school in architecture may well
rival any in Western lands. Its medical
department is especially flourishing. Under
the existing regime at Saint Petersburg we
would naturally expect that a theological de-
partment, including comparative religions,
and a legal faculty, explaining and emphasiz-
ing legal rights of man, whether based on
the Mosaic law or the Napoleonic code,
would be kept in abeyance, and such is the
fact. No such restriction, however, rests
upon the medical department, so we look
with unbounded admiration on the new, im-
posing, solidly built and artistically con-
structed Clinic, occupying a whole block, and
also wonder at the fine, well-equipped Bac-
teriological Institute, away out here in the
very heart of the wilds of Siberia.

This University was opened just two dec-
ades ago, in 1889. It has some two thou-
sand students and a library of one hundred
thousand volumes, and its privately endowed
Scholarship Fund amounts to $2,500,000,
United States gold.1

Its museum possesses large collections of
rare curios, but they are housed in cramped,
crowded rooms, utterly inadequate for such
fine specimens, some of which belong to the

1 Siberia : A Record of Travel, Climbing, and Explo-
ration, by S. Turner, p. 99.

PC

TOMSK 191

Bronze Age, recently unearthed from mounds
discovered near the sources of the Yenisei.
It is particularly rich in objects illustrative
of native tribes throughout Siberia. Our
guide showed us some specimens of American
Indian workmanship, which had been pre-
sented by the Smithsonian Institution, Wash-
ington, D. C, and compared these with va-
rious articles made by Tungus and Aleutians,
such as birch-bark canoes, fancy translucent
fishskin garments, and also beadwork on
leather made by the natives living along the
Amur River, long before Columbus dis-
covered America.

Windows and Wedding

Why everywhere in Siberia a glass tumbler
holding a fluid was placed on the inner win-
dow sill between the double-sash windows,
which are needed to ward off the severe cold
of winter, we could not understand, until
the explanation was given that the fluid in
the tumblers was ammonia in solution,
placed there to prevent the formation of
vapor on the panes of glass which otherwise
would obscure the view.

Looking out of those double-sashed win-
dows of the Makoushin mansion one after-
noon, we saw carriages draw up before the
old Greek Cathedral, where a crowd quickly
gathered. Madame Makoushin told us that
it was a Russian wedding, and advised us to

192 STRANGE SIBERIA

go over and witness the ceremony. So her
son gallantly offered to escort us. We
hastened across the street and entered the
Cathedral. Going inside the reserved corded
space, he led us to a favorable standing place,
for he was well known to the officiating
priest. From this vantage ground we eagerly
watched the wedding ceremony, so novel to
us. The priest, clothed in gorgeous yellow
robes, had a most peculiar head of brown
hair, which stood out stiffly all around his
head, instinctively reminding one of the
comic pictures of a mischievous boy so
frightened that each hair stood on end.
However, there was nothing comical in the
ceremony, but, as in most Greek Church serv-
ices, all was solemn and symbolic. As usual,
the music throughout the ceremony was
especially rich and thrilling, and particu-
larly fine were the deep, mellow notes of the
priest, wearing the fantastic Circassian head
of hair. "Without effort, the voice of the
priest was the sound of virile, unexhausted,
elemental vocality itself, suppressed, puri-
fied, beautified by devotion and lofty spir-
itual feeling."1

The expectant couple, in holiday attire, did
not stand before the altar but in the center
of the room. The priest led them by the
hand to their proper positions and then gave

1 The Russian Advance, by Albert J. Beveridge, p.
349.

TOMSK 193

each a lighted candle, symbolizing caution in
looking before they leaped into wedded life.
After considerable singing and reading, the
priest lifted the heavy Bible from the lectern
and presented it in turn to bridegroom and
bride to kiss, indicating that this book
should be reverenced as their guide through
life. Then he dipped two gold rings into
holy water and, after pronouncing his bless-
ing, handed one to each of the bridal pair.
The man placed his upon the middle finger of
the woman, who did the same on the middle
finger of her future husband, symbolic that
each belonged to the other. After this two
lofty golden crowns were produced. One
was placed upon the bridegroom's head and
the other upon the bride's, symbolizing that
the man was to be king and the woman queen
in their new home. Then, as if to restrain
them from becoming unduly elated by these
assured regal rights, he threw a long wide
scarf around their clasped hands and rather
unceremoniously led them both on a quick
pace three times around the lectern, on which
lay the Bible and a crucifix, thereby declar-
ing that the truth and love of God should be
the center of all their actions. The sacra-
ment of the Lord's Supper was then par-
taken and the crucifix kissed, thus emphasiz-
ing the sacrificial nature of God's love, which
their lives should exemplify. Finally, to
manifest that marriage is honorable, so that

194 STRANGE SIBERIA

no one entering wisely into its holy precincts
need ever be ashamed, they kissed each other
in public and the ecclesiastical ceremony
was over. At this moment loving relatives
and friends began cordially to greet the
happy pair, and the glad bells in the Ca-
thedral tower above chimed their hearty
approval.

Market Place

The widely extended market place, with
its ever-changing, strangely clad crowds,
shifting amid the busy shops and stalls,
where meat, game, vegetables, fruit, and
other produce, and also farming and house-
hold utensils, articles of clothing, as well as
clumsily made toys, were sold, was always
an unfailing source of attraction to us,
whether we were leisurely sauntering or
slowly riding along. One morning, noticing
some bunches of fine-looking radishes, we in-
quired the price and were told thirty kopeks
per bunch. Thinking the price too high, we
ordered the coachman to drive on, where-
upon the peasant woman rushed out of her
stall and ran after our drosky and threw a
fine, bright-red specimen of a radish into
little Marion's lap, as if to show that she
was not really so avaricious as she might
seem to be. Suffice it to say, that on our
next visit there we purchased some of her
tempting wares.

TOMSK 195

Carriage Ride

One afternoon we rode in a drosky up the
steep winding incline at the eastern extrem-
ity of the city and enjoyed the extensive
views from the edge of the vast eastern
steppe, which stretches far away toward
Lake Baikal. The city of Tomsk lies so low
near the foot of this steppe that formerly,
only a few miles away, this low-lying city
could not be seen. Not many years previous
a party of nearly one hundred soldiers and
returning emigrants, losing the post-road by
a heavy fall of snow, perished, and some of
the frozen corpses of the party were after-
ward picked up within three miles of the city
limits. Such a catastrophe would be almost
impossible now, since these cliffs along the
edge of the steppe are being covered with
churches and residences, visible for long dis-
tances. From these surrounding bluffs, to-
ward sunset, when the twilight glow illu-
mined the numerous green domes, cupolas,
towers, and roofs of the city, spread out on
the plain below, the outlook bore a striking
resemblance to a somewhat similar scene
from the heights of Walnut Hills, overlook-
ing Cincinnati.

Near the market by the stream Uschaika,
dividing the city into two parts, we could
look down from the bridge spanning the
creek and see the many motor boats which
uly across the Tom River to a riverine re-

196 STRANGE SIBERIA

sort and to the summer houses on its oppo-
site side.

Street Sights

The long evenings, when the sunshine
lasted toward nine o'clock, were highly rel-
ished by the natives. At Saint Petersburg
we met a Russian who had lived some time
in New York. He stated that he disliked the
American summers, where one swelters under
the fierce heat, and the twilights are so short,
whereas in his Russian home he could enjoy
the long, delightful summer evenings. Be-
fore retiring we would take a glance out of
our front windows and notice citizens still
enjoying the long-drawn-out twilight — most
reasonably so, when one thinks of their hiber-
nating for half a year or longer in their
stuffy winter quarters. Some evenings, even
after eleven o'clock, we would step out on
our little balcony to "view the landscape
o'er." Even at that late hour a rosy glow
would be visible on the western horizon, so
that the streets were not yet real dark, while
the contours of the Greek churches and the
upper parts of city buildings would cast
clear-cut silhouettes against the bright sky.

The stately public buildings and attractive
stores, having large plate-glass show-win-
dows, in Siberian cities, like Irkutsk and
Tomsk, were as great a revelation to us as
were those of Portland, Oregon, in 1877, be-

TOMSK 197

fore that enterprising city on the Pacific
slope was linked to the great transconti-
nental lines of railroad.

Benches along the main streets in front of
stores and in residential streets before citi-
zens' homes are quite an institution in
Irkutsk and Tomsk. One day as we were
coming from the post office, on the main
street at Tomsk, we were accosted by a Rus-
sian traveler, whom we had met several times
in the dining car between Harbin and
Irkutsk, and on whom we had practiced
Russian. He seemed delighted to meet us
again, and proposed our sitting down on one
of these public benches nearby, so that we
might converse at our leisure. This we did,
as we gazed upon the droskies and basket-
like telegas dashing past in the street, and
the crowds, some briskly and others leisurely
promenading on the sidewalks. We found
out that he was planning to proceed toward
Russia on the same train with us. He told
us that he was a Mohammedan from Vladivo-
stok, where he had been engaged in shipping
meat by cold storage from Australia to that
port, and now he was on his way to Caucasia.

Receiving Prison

In our desire to see as much as possible
of the life of a place, we would often wander
into side streets. Once in Tomsk, as we
were so walking, we heard rough-sounding

198 STRANGE SIBERIA

voices, and, looking up, saw many windows
of a broad, high building, crowded with con-
victs, clothed in earthen-colored garments,
and many with iron chains on their wrists.
Unintentionally we had stumbled upon one
of the large receiving prisons, for which
Tomsk has an unsavory reputation. In-
stantly the horrors of Siberian prison life,
as described by George Kennan, were con-
jured up from our memories. An uncanny
feeling startled and oppressed us. Hastily
we quickened our steps to escape from the
sight and sounds of this horrid spot. Ever
afterward in our strolls we were careful to
keep away from that detested place, although
only one block away was located a prosper-
ous young ladies' seminary. One day we
rode by a grove in a fashionable quarter,
where were buildings connected with a popu-
lar Cafe' Chantant, but young Mr. Makou-
shin's comment upon it was, "Not good."

City Park

A large city park, ornamentally laid out
with winding walks, planted with trees and
shrubbery, and provided with refreshment
booths, where cakes, kumiss, ices, and other
delicacies were in brisk demand, was a fa-
vorite resort for the multitude, as well as for
our trio, since it was only one block away
from our hotel. We would frequently
saunter around the paths or sit down on one

TOMSK 199

of the many benches and watch the peasants
in their odd costumes and the school chil-
dren at their sprightly games. Crowds
gather in this park evenings as well as dur-
ing the day. Late one afternoon workmen
were busy decorating a portion of these
pleasure grounds with gala flags and fancy
lanterns for a "Firemen's Show."

Special playgrounds were set apart for
the children. One space was full of nimble,
rollicking urchins, exercising on swings,
horizontal and parallel bars, rings fastened
to hanging ropes, vertical ladders, and sim-
ilar apparatus. In another space there was
a miniature slide-hill, on which a smooth,
round log about a foot thick and fifty feet
long was so fixed on a slant that one's own
weight would send him sliding down. Off at
arm's length at one side was a smooth rail-
ing, which could be touched to steady the
timid or save the luckless from a fall. This Si-
berian sport, we thought, was an improvement
on our old-fashioned American fun of sliding
down a cellar door, so exciting in our child-
hood days. We never wearied watching the
constantly changing, brightly colored stream
of happy, ruddy-faced boys and girls, who,
like Tennyson's "Brook," seemed to "go on
forever." One little tot, apparently four
years old, would take his turn in sliding
down the log, trudging uphill and then to-
bogganing down again, with as much zest as

200 STRANGE SIBERIA

his playmates twice or thrice his age. One
little maiden, not yet in her teens, carefully
held in her lap her baby sister, while with
the other hand she steadied herself by holding
on to the side-rail. Handicapped as she was,
she never seemed to have enough of the play,
and her gleeful face said that she was hav-
ing, in the anglicized phrase of a Chinese
youth, "a lot of funs."

Dentists

Another American enterprise, besides sew-
ing machines, kodaks, typewriters, cash
registers, gramophones, and other Yankee no-
tions, had apparently found its way into
Siberia's capital, and that was dentistry.
Judging from the numerous signs of dentists
and dental schools displayed on the main and
side streets, Tomsk ought to encourage a
profitable export trade along the dental line.
Such a bountiful supply of dentists ought to
more than suffice to repair the jaws not only
of all its own citizens and all the strangers
within its gates, but also all the tribes of
Aleuts, Buriats, Tungus, and Kirghis roam-
ing over Siberian soil.

Yellow Literature

It did seem a pity — but perhaps it cannot
be helped at present — to see "yellow litera-
ture" for sale. It was vauntingly displayed
at newspaper kiosks, where were small paper-

TOMSK 201

covered pamphlets, illustrated with pictures
of masked assassins, robberies, and murders,
before which stood groups of youthful ad-
mirers. Several years ago heathen Chinese
officials in Peking prohibited the sale of ob-
jectionable pictures on their streets on the
ground that they corrupted the morals of
the people.

The baleful influence of this cheap litera-
ture has been noticed in a recent number of
the Outlook, New York, October 1, 1910:
"Without attempting to fix or apportion the
responsibility for the general disregard of
property and personal rights in Russia, we
may point out the existence of a cause of
crime to which attention has never been
directly called either by the government or
by its enemies, and that is the unrestricted
circulation of criminal literature. In con-
nection with the recent exhibition of books
and periodicals in Saint Petersburg, the De-
partment of Press Affairs compiled, for the
information of visitors, a statistical classifi-
cation of all the books published in the Rus-
sian empire in the year 1909. From this
classification it appears that, in point of cir-
culation, the literature of crime takes fourth
place (after schoolbooks, almanacs, and
tracts), with 585 separate titles and 8,981,-
520 copies. The books which make up this
immense class are all intended for circula-
tion among the peasants, are sold at an

202 STRANGE SIBERIA

average price of three cents each, and are
collectively known to the Russian book-trade
as 'Pinkerton Stories.' They may be de-
scribed as flimsy 'penny dreadfuls,' whose
paper covers are embellished with cheap
colored pictures of crime or the instruments
of crime, and whose contents may be inferred
from their titles, some of which are : A Nest
of Criminals, The Man with Three Fingers,
The Bloody Altar, The Revenge of the Es-
caped Convict, The Corpse of the Gold-
Seeker, The Bloody Pavilion, The Two-
Footed Wolf, A Mysterious Crime, The
Bloody Talisman, The Church Robber, Mod-
ern Inquisitors, Kidnapers of Girls, The
Incendiary, A Sect of Murderers, Secret Bul-
lets, Lynch Law, and The Manufacture of
Counterfeit Money."

Legend and History

One of the sights of Tomsk is the tomb of
Theodore Kusmitsch, who died in 1861. This
tomb is erected in the cemetery of the Alex-
ander Monastery on the heights above the
center of the city. A popular legend, based
on the resemblance of this ascetic to the
Tsar, Alexander I, and fostered by the
priests, is that Alexander I did not die in
southern Russia, but escaped in disguise to
Tomsk, where he lived as a hermit, under the
name of Theodore Kusmitsch. This rumor
is believed by many devotees, who flock to

Tomb of Theodore Kusmitsch, Tomsk

TOMSK 203

worship at his tomb. It was this legend
that worked such an overpowering weird
spell over Count Leo Tolstoy that the octo-
genarian novelist stealthily stole away from
his comfortable home, in the pathetic at-
tempt to imitate Kusmitsch. All the world
knows how he, finally succumbing at a lonely
railway station, abruptly met his tragic fate.
The nunnery in which Tsar Peter II com-
pelled his bride, Princess Katherine Dol-
goroukaya, to take the veil, and where she
was immured two years, until released by
Empress Elizabeth, has been razed to the
ground and now the fine Greek Church of the
Incarnation occupies the old site.

Other Faiths

Tomsk exhibits a surprising liberal spirit
toward other faiths. Besides two Greek
Cathedrals and innumerable Greek churches,
there are sacred edifices dedicated to the
Mohammedan, Hebrew, Roman Catholic, and
Protestant faiths.

In one quarter of the city stands a lone
Mohammedan mosque, with its tall, slender
minaret, where the muezzin stands and calls
the faithful to prostrations and prayers.
How did this lonely mosque ever spring up
on this wild Siberian soil? Could it be
possible that some descendants of the Mame-
lukes, who had been sold into Egyptian
slavery by Genghis Khan, after long listen-

204 STRANGE SIBERIA

ing to the legendary tales of their forbears,
became suddenly possessed with a resolve to
seek out those boundless ancestral steppes,
and so left the alluring city of Cairo, with its
one thousand mosques, bringing with them
the seed of this solitary, graceful minaret,
which so astonished our eyes to-day?

Here also we find a Jewish synagogue.
How did this colony of Jews ever come to
settle here? Were they of that company of
Israelites who in the dim centuries of the
past halted here, preferring to remain on
this side of Jordan than to wander farther
toward the promised "land of Sinim," the
ruins of whose old synagogue have lately
been discovered inside the walled city of Kai-
Feng-fu, on the banks of the Yellow River?

Then, again, we distinguished the charac-
teristic cross on the lofty steeple of the Ro-
man Catholic church. Do these Romanists
claim descent from the followers of Saint
Thomas, who is said to have visited India,
just over the border of southern Siberia, or,
perchance, of Xavier, who later labored
there?

Authentic history states that Catherine II
induced many German Protestants to settle
on the fertile land in southeastern Rus-
sia, and bestowed upon them special privi-
leges, including freedom of worship. Ekater-
inburg, Ekaterinodar, Ekaterinoslaw, Eka-
terinowka, and many other places, in which

TOMSK 205

her name is interwoven, indicate how highly
this liberal-minded empress was esteemed
by these thrifty Teutons. Recently many of
these German-speaking subjects have mi-
grated into "Greater Russia."

Repulsive Painting

The Lutheran church at Tomsk, a neat,
homelike structure, is admirably located op-
posite the City Park. However, as soon as
one enters the sacred edifice, he is startled
and shocked by a large painting directly in
front. The conspicuous painting represents
the Christ in a kneeling, agonizing posture
in the garden of Gethsemane, limned in a
most revoltingly realistic manner. God is
love, and his "love divine, all love excelling,"
reveals itself not only in Gethsemane and on
Calvary, but also at Bethlehem, Bethany, and
everywhere as he "went about doing good."
So do we find him portrayed in the great
masterpieces.

In the celebrated fresco of "The Last
Judgment," painted on the inner wall of the
Sistine Chapel, Michelangelo depicted Christ
in the prime of his vigorous manhood, acting
as divine Arbitrator in deciding the destinies
of mankind. Raphael and Murillo loved to
paint over and over again the miracle of the
incarnation. Thorwaldsen sculptured his
monumental Christ with extended arms of
blessing and invitation, so that as with

206 STRANGE SIBERIA

wondrous rapture we gaze at his colossal
Christ, in the Lutheran cathedral of "Our
Lady," at Copenhagen, we can almost hear
his gracious words saying, "Come unto me."

Some such incidents in the loving, trium-
phant life of Christ are far more uplifting
and inspiring for the house of God. Vast,
stately cathedrals, like those at Cologne,
Toledo, and Chartres may impress the wor-
shiper with divine awe, as is right and meet
in God's holy temple. But this divine awe,
if truly contemplated, is so overwhelming in
its very infinitude, that we need a reminder
of the very essence of Deity, love. So we
joyfully welcome the genial warmth of the
sun's rays, which stream through the ex-
quisitely beautiful stained-glass windows of
these cathedrals, radiantly illumining the
familiar biblical stories of faith, hope, and
love, and lavishly throwing a mass of won-
drous rainbow tints on the cold pavement
below.

Now, this painting in the Tomsk Lutheran
church represents our Saviour excruciatingly
jaded, indescribably sad and appallingly
ghastly. Either it ought to be removed at
once, or its counterpart, illustrating some
incident in his joyful, merciful, or trium-
phant life, should also hang there to counter-
act this repellent spectacle. Otherwise, if
we belonged to that communion, nothing but
deep religious conviction could ever induce

TOMSK 207

us to attend the services there Sunday after
Sunday. Rather would we be inclined to
join the earnest throngs who flock to the
many Greek churches, so attractive with their
superb music, gorgeous rites, and handsome
icons, revealing the benign Madonna and the
infant Christ in all his innocent loveliness.

Cathedral Service

It chanced to be Whitsunday during our
stay at Tomsk, and we managed to wedge
our way into the new Cathedral amid surg-
ing crowds of zealous worshipers, where rich
and poor met together. Compared with the
Pharisaic exclusiveness in some of our
American Protestant churches, this free
commingling of rich and poor in their com-
mon worship of God was most refreshing.
True theocracy it was, when in this Cathe-
dral the splendid uniforms of the army of-
ficers and the broadcloth suits of the wealthy
citizens, along with the costly furs and vel-
vets of the ladies, brushed by the side of the
tattered felt and ragged sheepskin of the
peasants. In the presence of God the
millionaire and the beggar stand equal. In-
deed, are we not all, in the sight of our
heavenly Father, equally his children
throughout life, as well as in the hour and
article of death? Especially appropriate is
it to remember and emphasize this whole-
some truth in the house of God.

208 STRANGE SIBERIA

The aged and infirm would find this Greek
worship, though varied by almost incessant
prostrations and crossings, very wearisome.
The prescribed posture, apart from those
above mentioned, is standing, and the serv-
ice is by no means brief. This standing at-
titude in worship contrasts strikingly with
that of the ordinary pampered American con-
gregation, who complacently, if not resign-
edly, are seated in their reserved uphol-
stered pews.

Participating in Russian church services
means the practice along devotional lines of
"La Vie Intense," as "The Strenuous Life,"
by Roosevelt, has been rendered in French,
and putting forth extra effort as in the good
old days, when the prophets urged the peo-
ple, saying, "Come ye and let us go up" to
the Lord's house, established on the top of
the mountains. Downhill-going is easy, but
uphill work means exertion. Worshipers in
the Russian church to-day do not find their
devotional exercises any lazy lolling about
on soft pews. Rather may it be regarded
as one phase of muscular Christianity.

In honor of this Whitsuntide festival, the
interior of this vast Cathedral was beauti-
fully decorated with an abundance of leafy
branches from white birch and poplar trees
and with bouquets of wild flowers. At one
counter near the central pillars a brisk trade
was kept up in candles, large and small,

TOMSK 209

which the devotees, after purchasing, carried
to other priests near particular shrines,
where they were lighted and with others
made the dim religious light brighter. On
one long table near the candle-stall small
rolls of bread were being purchased. One in-
cident showed that Siberian notions of
etiquette differed from ours, for a gorgeously
robed priest deliberately took out a comb
and with it adjusted his hair in the presence
of all the congregation, before he placed a
heavy golden crown on his head and pro-
ceeded with the prescribed ceremony; but
this public performance was of a piece with
another long-haired priest, whom we saw
riding in a drosky with his wife at his side
and her bandbox in his lap.

The exceeding richness and profusion of
costly icons in this new Cathedral was very
noticeable — some quite quaint in design.
One had a realistic representation of the Son
of God in the bosom of the Father, while an-
other exhibited the Holy Ghost by a fantastic
combination of a beatific woman's face with
the wings of a dove at each side but minus
a body.

Monday, another holiday — "The Descent
of the Holy Ghost." We were disappointed
and disgusted to find on going out that all
the large stores and public buildings were
closed, on this our last day in Tomsk, since
we had planned to make a few more pur-

210 STRANGE SIBERIA

chases. Under the circumstances we tried
to make the best of it and so strolled along
the streets and parks sight-seeing amid the
throng of festive, happy-go-lucky holiday-
goers. To some Siberians, who had evidently
imbibed too freely of their favorite vodka,
we gave a wide berth. Why did so many of
the populace make such a public spectacle of
this historic spiritual event by reversing the
scriptural injunction: "Be not" drunken with
wine, wherein is riot, but be filled with the
Spirit"? And this sorry travesty of God's
most gracious gift on the very day set apart
to commemorate "The Descent of the Holy
Ghost" !

CHAPTER XIV

Across the Steppes

Some of the Asiatic steppes are grassy plains.
Others are covered with succulent, evergreen,
articulated sodaplants. Many glisten from a dis-
tance with flakes of exuded salt, which cover the
clayey soil, not unlike in appearance to freshly
fallen snow. — Humboldt.

Onward from Tomsk

On Tuesday, June 1, long after daybreak,
but really quite early — for the correct time
by the clock was only half-past four — we
arose, packed our goods, and at half-past six
o'clock started for the railway station. The
morning air was fresh and bracing. After
bounding over the uneven cobblestone pave-
ment of the city we enjoyed all the more
the early ride back again over the smooth
park roads leading through the white birch
forests.

We might have continued our journey by
water down the Tom and Obi and up the
Tobol Rivers to Tobolsk, as had been sug-
gested. Or, if we had been so inclined, we
could have made an excursion by steamboat
to Barnaul, one hundred miles south, among
the foothills of the Altai range, where its
population of 30,000 inhabitants, its thriv-
211

212 STRANGE SIBERIA

ing mining industries, and its choice mu-
nicipal museum would have interested us.
This mining industry was established there
in 1738 by Demidoff, whose enterprise was
recognized and rewarded with the rank of
nobility by Peter the Great, and by this town
with his statue in a public square. Pro-
ceeding fifty miles further south from Bar-
naul by steamboat up the Obi toward the
Altai mountains, we would have arrived at
the busy, picturesque town of Biisk, with
its 18,000 inhabitants. At this remote town,
if we should chance to discover that our
"fluid assets" had run short, we could have
them replenished at the Kusso-China Bank
there. We decided, however, to abide by our
original plan.

The poet, whose enraptured soul gave vent
to the strains, "Backward, turn backward,
O time!" might have felt some consolation
to find that each day one hour had heeded
his passionate appeal, but for full and com-
plete satisfaction he would have to voyage
over the Pacific from America to Asia.
After crossing the 180° meridian, the steam-
ship captain arbitrarily drops out of the
calendar one entire day. The voyager re-
tires, for instance, on Monday evening and
awakens the next morning to find it Wednes-
day. Nowhere else on the surface of this
globe of ours can be found a more effectual
way of killing time.

ACROSS THE STEPPES 213

Immigrants

The railway stations were of the same
monotonous type. Occasionally we would
watch the thirsty immigrants, holding ket-
tles, pitchers, bottles, and cups in their
hands, standing in line to take their turn to
get their government keep-o-tok. Most piti-
able was the forlorn appearance of many of
them, stranded at the various stations and
huddled together on the platforms. Among
them were many mothers with baby and
bundle strapped on their backs. Some were
barefooted, although furs were worn by some
of our fellow passengers. Many men and
women wore coarse sandals braided out of
rushes, which looked as cheap and crude as
the straw-shoes with which the Japanese
used to shoe their horses before and long
after the days of Commodore Perry. The
pungent odor which exuded from some of
these immigrant cars was easily distin-
guished from that "of Araby the blest," and
presented a strong contrast to the pure ozone
of these sunshiny days, for

It is the month of June,
The month of leaves and roses,

When pleasant sights salute the eyes
And pleasant scents the noses.

Passing Sights

Every telegraph pole had two numbers
painted on it. One indicated the individual

214 STRANGE SIBERIA

number of the pole and the other the year in
which it had been erected. Movable fences
for the purpose of warding off snow-drifts
reminded us of similar appliances over the
Rockies and Sierra Nevadas on American
transcontinental railroads.

After leaving Taiga the forest gradually
became less dense, and before long we
emerged upon the open steppes with their
broad, seemingly limitless fields of wild
grass and flowers. Windmills on many farm-
steads added a quaint Dutch feature to the
landscape.

A few hours' ride west from Taiga brought
us to the flourishing town of Novo-Niko-
layevesk, on the right bank of the Obi, with
its 25,000 inhabitants. Lord Ronaldshay,
Major Swayne, and other British sportsmen
have selected this place as their favorite
starting point in their pursuit of mountain
sheep, ibex, wapiti, and other large game on
the northern slopes of the Altai.

Bridges and Rivers

Our train crossed the Obi River on a rail-
way bridge 2,640 feet long. These railway
bridges over the Yenisei, Obi, Irtysh, and
other Siberian rivers are all fine, solid struc-
tures— veritable triumphs of engineering
skill. In our schooldays we studied the out-
landish names of these Siberian rivers. Lit-
tle did we then dream that the day would

ACROSS THE STEPPES 215

ever dawn when we would be comfortably
gliding over them on such magnificent
bridges. A trip to the moon would have
seemed just as probable. At the time Jules
Verne published his famous romance,
Around the World in Eighty Days, the story
was generally considered as preposterous
as a tale of Baron Munchausen. Truth is
stranger than fiction. To-day, that once
popular book has been relegated to the back
shelves of the libraries, side by side with
tomes on ancient history.

Omsk

Early on the morning of June 2 our train
stopped at the station of Omsk, which, like
other Siberian depots, is situated miles away
from the city, but a branch line of railway
or a drosky affords the means of communi-
cation.

Omsk is a city of considerable importance,
having 53,000 inhabitants and twenty-nine
educational establishments, and is the center
of a growing agricultural district. The grain
and hay are gathered chiefly by machines,
bearing the names of Deering and McCor-
mick of Chicago. These American harvest-
ing machines are great favorites with Si-
berian farmers, on account of their lightness
and adaptability compared with the heavy,
clumsy articles of British or Russian manu-
facture. Recently an American lady has do-

216 STRANGE SIBERIA

nated funds with which to erect a Baptist
church in the city.

Along the sloping banks of the Irtysh,
where the waters of the Om flow into it, and
not far from the steamboat landing, extends
the city park. Near by, on the banks of the
Om, is the Children's Playground, with its
summer theater, a miniature of its proto-
type in the Parisian Champs Elysees. As in
most large Siberian cities, so here is a fine
museum, with choice specimens of the pre-
historic period, collected from the surround-
ing steppes, curious articles of indigenous
domestic industries, and a rare collection of
ornithology.

Omsk is historically noted as the place of
banishment for the celebrated writer, Dosto-
yevsky, whose popular work, Buried Alive,
which has been translated into many lan-
guages, reveals some aspects of the execrable
exile system. According to Roznovsky, a
fellow prisoner, Dostoyevsky was twice
flogged by the prison authorities. Once he
was punished for having complained, on be-
half of the other prisoners, because a lump
of filth was found in their soup. The second
time his offense was that, in defiance of an
officer's command, he saved a fellow prisoner
from drowning. On both occasions he was
brutally beaten. After the second flogging,
which his companions regarded as fatal, he
was removed to the hospital. Fortunately

ACROSS THE STEPPES 217

recovering, he was ever afterward dubbed
by his fellow-convicts with the nickname
"Deceased."1

By traveling down the Irtysh River, the
traveler may proceed to Tobolsk and further
eastward to Tomsk. Or, if possessed with
an adventuresome spirit and desirous of
seeing some of Russia's acquired possessions
in Central Asia, he could journey by steamer
south 685 miles up the Irtysh to the Oriental
city of Semipalatinsk and thence by post-
road to the great city of Tashkent in Tur-
kestan, with its 156,000 inhabitants, which
Russia annexed in 1865, and thence by rail
via Samarkand with its mausoleum of Tam-
erlane, thence to Bochara, Merv, and the
Caspian, then across this inland sea to Baku,
with its petroleum industry, and so on to
Europe.2 On his way he could visit Rus-
sia's new Asiatic stronghold, Vladikaukas,
"Queen of Caucasia."

Petropaulovsk

A six hours' ride from Omsk brought us
to the city of Petropaulovsk, named in honor
of two great apostles, one who labored chiefly
among the Jews and the other among the
Gentiles. A third of its 21,500 inhabitants
are Mohammedans. In the city, two miles

1 Russia and the Russians, by E. Noble, p. 220.
* Travel and Sport in Turkestan, by Captain J. N.
Price Wood.

218 STRANGE SIBERIA

distant from the railway, is a noted barter-
market, whose slopes open on an interior
court, where brisk trading is carried on,
chiefly in cattle and hides. Up to 1826 this
place was notorious as the mart where Cos-
sacks publicly sold their captives.

Kourgan

The next important stop is at Kourgan,
or Kurgan, another six hours' run. Kour-
gan, situated on the river Tobol, derives its
name from the Tartar "gur," "kyr," or "kur,"
signifying a grave, or hill, and "khan," a
house — literally a grave-house.1 Many of
these tumuli, or hillocks, dotting the plains
have been found to contain rare collections
of archaeological treasures, which now en-
rich the museums of Saint Petersburg and
other cities.

Butter Business

Kourgan is one of the main centers in the
manufacture of Siberian butter. Many do
not yet realize that the quantity of butter
exported from Siberia is double that of
wheat. An Englishman, engaged in this busi-
ness, traveled with us from Omsk to his home
in Kourgan, where, on alighting, he was af-
fectionately greeted by his wife and son.
He gave us interesting particulars about
this profitable industry. Just before the

1 The Russian Empire, by Haxthausen.

ACROSS THE STEPPES 219

train pulled into the depot at Kourgan he
pointed out one of the large butter establish-
ments, in which he was interested. Large
letters in Russian, German, and English ad-
vertised "The Union Cold Storage Co., Lon-
don." He stated that fourteen English, Ger-
man, and Danish firms were at Kourgan,
about twenty-one at Omsk, and others
at Barnaul and other places on the surround-
ing steppes.

This business of butter-making in Siberia
has been greatly assisted by the government.
In order to secure efficiency and economy in
its manufacture and excellence in the pro-
duct, a professor of agriculture is appointed
by the central authorities to study the latest
improvements all over the world in the
science and art of butter-making. The re-
sults of their investigations are published
in pamphlet form and distributed to trained
men, graduates of universities, who teach
at the Siberian Dairy Schools, established at
Kourgan, Omsk, Barnaul, and elsewhere.
An agronom, or professor of dairy farming,
has the oversight of each dairy, who gives
personal attention and instruction to the
peasants, so that a moujik of average intel-
ligence, after three months' training, is
qualified to manage a dairy. These dairies
belong to cooperative associations or artels,
so popular in Russia, who hire these quali-
fied dairymen to manufacture butter for

220 STRANGE SIBERIA

them on modern scientific methods. In 1903
the government granted substantial subsidies
to assist these artels. There are more than
two hundred and fifty artels, and their num-
ber is constantly increasing. Government
experts, usually from the Baltic provinces,
and also skilled Danish butter-makers, who
must be provided with government diplomas,
supplement the work of the native butter-
makers, by systematic visitations, practical
demonstrations, and correction of errors.
Each of these inspectors has oversight of ten
creameries. The governmental instructors
also teach the peasant how scientifically to
feed cattle on fodder during the winter, some-
what on the plan of American silos, so that
butter is produced all the year round.

This immense butter-making industry had
its origin in the dairy of an English wife of
a Russian, who lived in the Tiumen district,
and whose dairy to-day is still regarded as
a model. In 1896 hers was the only dairy in
all Siberia.

This butter business has assumed so great
proportions that to handle the traffic the
railway has ten hundred and eighty refrig-
erator cars of fifteen tons each, for which
the railway arranges a weekly service of
seven trains, each train, if necessary, com-
posed of thirty-five cars. These trains of
refrigerator cars are easily distinguished by
being painted white. They convey the butter

ACROSS THE STEPPES 221

to Saint Petersburg, Riga, and other Baltic
ports, where steamships regularly carry the
golden product to England. Sometimes as
many as one thousand tons of Siberian
butter have been delivered in London within
a single week.

Russian Eggs

This Englishman, now employed in the
butter business, told us that previously he
had been employed in the poultry business
in the country southeast of Moscow, where
he shipped eggs by the wholesale to London.
It may be news to some to know that Great
Britain annually buys nearly £1,000,000 or
15,000,000 worth of Russian eggs.

After the usual three signals, our train
pulled out of the station of Kourgan and
steadily glided over the level steppes west
ward toward the Urals, passing izbas, wind
mills, and telegraph poles in quick succes
sion.

CHAPTER XV

Over the Urals

There is a chain of mountains, celebrated for a
long time, but better known in our day by its
numerous mines and smelters, and by the scien-
tific explorers, who have traversed it in all direc-
tions. These are the Ural Mountains, which the
people living there revere and call "the Girdle
of the Earth," and which Strahlenberg rightly
fixes as the boundary between Europe and Asia.
— P. 8. Pallas, Observations sur les Formation des
Montagnes, 1777, p. 10.

Chelyabinsk

At Chelyabinsk, an important junction at
the foot of the eastern slope of the Urals,
the Trans-Siberian Railway divides into two
branches, one going north one hundred and
fifty-four miles to Ekaterinburg, where it
crosses the Urals and proceeds westward via
Perm, direct to Saint Petersburg. The other
line continues due west, via Slatoust, Sa-
mara, and Tula, near Count Tolstoy's estates,
to Moscow. At present two trains run
weekly to Russia's old capital, and one to
the new one on the Neva.

At this junction not far from the railway

depot stand the immense modern barracks

for the accommodation of immigrants en

route for Siberia. The city of Chelyabinsk,

222

OVER THE URALS 223

situated nearly three miles distant from the
railway on the banks of the Mias, contains
some 27,000 inhabitants. The approach by
the railway westward to the Urals, like that
to the Rocky Mountains on the Union Pacific,
is so gradual that the tourist is surprised
when he learns that the train has already
arrived at the summit of the pass. At this
high point a triangular pyramid of white
marble has been erected on the dividing line
between the two continents. One of its
three sides is inscribed "Asia," and another
"Europe." This is the celebrated "Monu-
ment of Tears," noted for being embraced by
thousands of weeping exiles, as they pay sad
farewell to Europe before plunging into un-
known Siberia with its terrors, intensified
by incessant horrible rumors. Their hearts
are as heavy with inconsolable grief as were
the ancient Israelites who in their eastern
captivity, sat down and wept, hanging their
harps on the willows in a strange land.

Scenery

The scenery, where the railway crosses the
Urals, possesses no elements of grandeur or
sublimity at all comparable to Switzerland
or the Canadian Rockies. The tourist is,
perhaps, reminded of pleasant, picturesque
views along the Pennsylvania or Chesapeake
and Ohio Railroad over the Alleghenies
rather than that of the Denver and Rio

224 STRANGE SIBERIA

Grande or Canadian Pacific over the Rockies.
As our train wound its way around the many
mountain curves the speed was slackened, for
there was danger of cave-ins and landslides
from recent heavy downpours. In some
places the ground looked very miry and
treacherous. The newly shoveled-up dirt
showed that the roadbed had just been re-
paired from washouts. So in those risky
sections our train crept along at a snail's
pace, passing gangs of laborers with spades
in their hands.

Minerals

This Ural region is noted for apparently
inexhaustible mineral wealth. Here pre-
cious gold is mined. Ninety-five per cent of
the world's supply of platinum is produced
here. Its greatest riches, however, consist
in limitless deposits of iron ore, providing
four fifths of the pig iron used in Russia,
not to mention the profusion of precious
stones, including porphyry and jasper of
great beauty and immense slabs of malachite,
which, as gigantic pillars, vases and table-
slabs enrich the palaces, museums, and art
galleries of Moscow and Saint Petersburg.
Out of this Ural treasure-house are taken
twenty-five per cent of the gold obtained in
Russia, besides silver, mercury, copper,
nickel, zinc, cobalt, and coal. Rich stores
of sapphire, emerald, beryl, chrysoberyl, tour-

OVER THE URALS 225

maline, aquamarine, topaz, amethyst, rock-
crystal, garnet, jade, marble, diamond, as-
bestos, and pyrites are found imbedded in
the solid sides of this same rugged range of
mountains.1

Demidoff, the Miner

Peter the Great and his imperial succes-
sors perceived the necessary part which these
valuable minerals play in providing not only
for "the sinews of war" but also for public
expenditures in time of peace. So they have
wisely striven to encourage these mining
enterprises. History records how the first
iron smelter was established in 1623, and
that a very industrious miner named Demi-
doff had a small iron mine on the confines of
Siberia. Peter the Great on visiting the
spot was so pleased with the industry and
reputation of this miner, and so eager to
encourage mining, that he made Demidoff
and his heirs in perpetuity, a present of
an extensive district, surrounding his small
patrimonial mine. This enormous grant of
ground turned out to be a source of inex-
haustible wealth. It was found to cover
some of the richest veins and finest quality
of iron ore in Russia. The output soon en-
riched its industrious proprietor. His son
continued to work the mine and to explore

^Oriental and Western Siberia, by A. B. Granville
and Atkinson, p. 81.

226 STRANGE SIBERIA

more ground, and invested the capital thus
acquired in purchasing additional estates.
Among these was one in which soon after a
gold mine was discovered that has yielded
on an average 100,679 pounds in pure gold
annually. When Peter the Great learned
how valuable a subject he had rewarded in
old Demidoff he wished to see him classed in
the rank of nobles. After some hesitation
the old man agreed to accept his sovereign's
further bounty. When he was asked, what
his coat-of-arms would be, he replied, "A
miner's hammer, for I want my posterity
never to forget the source of their wealth
and prosperity." At present the Demidoff
estates comprise 3,095,700 acres.1

Souvenirs

At the various stations in the Ural Moun-
tains, booths for the sale of trinkets, which
are manufactured out of precious stones or
of iron, attracted the attention and the
money of passengers. Paper knives of figured
ironwork, paper weights, and other fancy
iron souvenirs are for sale at Slatoust, where
is located an important government armory.
This city is one of the most picturesque spots
along the line of the railway through the
Urals. Here the rushing Ai makes a grand
curve, as it impetuously forces its triumphal

1 Oriental and Western Siberia, by A. B. Granville and
Atkinson, p. 81.

OVER THE URALS 227

way onward through enfilading mountains.
"Sta-to-ust" is Russian for "Chrysostom," or
"the golden mouth," to whose honor Mosoloff,
a Moscow merchant, the founder of the town,
erected a church in 1754. 1

At these stations among the mountains we
bought a few souvenirs, such as a handsome
alexandrite bracelet, a chain of brilliant
aventurine beads, and a pretty whitish moon-
stone brooch in the shape of a butterfly. The
settings of these souvenir-gems were of very
inferior workmanship, so that after com-
paratively little use, all of this Ural jewelry
fell to pieces. Especially handsome were
the alexandrite stones.

Freshly picked bunches of beautiful wild
flowers were also offered for sale by peasant
boys and girls, at the way stations. We
longed to have the train stop long enough
just outside these towns, that we might
jump out on the wild prairie and gather a
few handfuls of forget-me-nots, lilies of the
valley, purple lilacs, and other beauties,
which "were so near, and yet so far," for, in
a most tantalizing manner, our train stolidly
and steadily whirled by toward the setting
sun, utterly oblivious of these floral beauties
and confirming the poet's true insight, that

Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air.

i Greater Russia, by William Oliver Greener, p. 74.

CHAPTER XVI

The Volga

The whole history of Russia is the history of
its three great rivers, and is divided into three
periods: that of the Dnieper with Kiev; that of
the Volga with Moscow; that of the Neva with
Novgorod, in the eighth century, and Saint Peters-
burg in the eighteenth. The Dnieper made Russia
Byzantine, the Volga Asiatic. It was for the Neva
to make it European. — Rambaud, History of Rus-
sia, vol. i, pp. 21, 28.

Samara

Our train halted at the busy city of Sa-
mara, a little this side of the great Alexan-
der Bridge over the Volga. This fine speci-
men of a railway bridge has fourteen sections
of 360 feet span each, and is built so high
that at low water it is 135 feet above the
river. In its structure nearly 7,000 tons of
iron were used, and it was constructed en-
tirely by Russian engineers.

Division of Night and Day

Since it was broad daylight at 4 :30 a. m.
when we alighted from the train, we jumped
into a drosky and, as usual, placed our pos-
sessions in another, and without delay
started for a popular kumiss sanitarium,
charmingly situated on high bluffs, overlook-
228

THE VOLGA 229

ing the Volga, nearly two miles distant.
Our guidebook stated, "The best time to visit
the watering place is spring and early sum-
mer," so we concluded, as it was June 4, we
had arrived just in the nick of time. We had
pictured to ourselves the novel experiences
we would have at a Russian spa, which we
might compare with other fashionable water-
ing places, as Wiesbaden, Leamington, or
Saratoga, and where we could mingle with
the crowds of visitors and observe how they
quaffed this quaint drink, kumiss, manu-
factured here out of mare's milk. The guide-
book said that the custom is to begin by
drinking daily one or two bottles and gradu-
ally increase the quantity until five bottles
are drunk daily. But

The best laid schemes o' mice and men
Gang aft a-gley.

The heavy rains, which caused the wash-
outs in the Urals, had evidently dispersed
their moisture over and into this famous
"black earth" district. Jersey mud and
Nishnibotany clay are nothing compared to
the sticky, oozy black mire through which
our horses tugged and wallowed. Providen-
tially without any very serious mishap, we
arrived at the sanitarium, only to find that
it had not been yet opened for the season!
Weary from travel and hungry as bears from
our early ride in the cool morning air, there

230 STRANGE SIBERIA

was nothing to do but to retrace our steps
and find a hotel at Samara. Still while the
horses had a few minutes to catch their
breath, we strolled along winding paths,
amid shrubs and vines dripping from the
heavy rains, through the artistically laid-out
grounds, coming occasionally upon pretty
rest-houses, from which could be obtained ex-
tensive vistas of the broad sweep of the Volga
valley and the mighty river flowing at our
feet. Then our jaded beasts tugged away
through the mire back to the city.

When we came to settle with our drosky
drivers at Samara, we paid them, as we sup-
posed, according to the regular printed tariff.
To our surprise, they indignantly refused to
accept this fare, and showed us the tariff-
card on which was distinctly printed, that
night rates prevailed for twelve o'clock mid-
night, until 7 a. m., during which time the
charges were double those of the daytime —
daytime being counted from 7 a. m. until
midnight. It did indeed seem passing
strange that, riding, as we did, in broad day-
light, the time should be reckoned as night-
time. But such was the case, not only in
Samara but also in Saint Petersburg. There
the daytime officially begins at 7 a. m. and
lasts until 12:30 a. m. If in the realm of
nature the darkness of midnight is officially
and arbitrarily reckoned as daylight, is it
any wonder that in Russian politics, dark-

THE VOLGA 231

ness and light, right and wrong, are so hope-
lessly confused?

Scythians

This city of Samara, with its 92,000 in-
habitants, is situated in the celebrated "black
land," which feeds 25,000,000 people and is
the center of an immense grain trade. It
was in this fertile district that Herodotus
placed the Scythians, and, strange to say,
refers to their drinking mare's milk even in
his day, centuries before the Christian era.
Homer's Cimmerian darkness in the Odyssey
refers to the long, dark, wintry nights of
this hyperborean region, where

The dusky nation of Cimmeria dwells,
The sun ne'er views th' unfathomable seats
When radiant, he advances or retreats.1

Among the many precious trophies in the
Hermitage at Saint Petersburg are two rare
vases, the Silver Vase of Nikopol and the
Golden Vase of Kertch, dating from the
fourth century before Christ, or about the
time Herodotus wrote his history. The un-
known artists depict upon these vases
Scythian horsemen of the same racial fea-
tures as their descendants lassoing and tam-
ing hordes precisely as is done on those same
plains to-day.

1 Odyssey, Bk. XI.

232 STRANGE SIBERIA

The City

Samara on the Volga, though situated
farther east than Bagdad, Mecca, and Zanzi-
bar, is in close touch by rail and water with
European civilization, as its various indus-
tries, fine stores, and public buildings testify.
We spent the day in this busy commercial
city in sight-seeing and making purchases.
In the early evening we rode to the wharf so
as to be in time to catch the steamboat for
Nijni-Novgorod, scheduled to arrive at 7:30
p. m. Like steamers on the Mississippi and
other rivers, punctuality was not always ob-
served. However, three hours behind time,
the steamer with its load of passengers was
moored alongside the wharf. Many of them
were from "Little Russia," whose Mongolian
features are so pronounced that it is not
necessary to scratch a native, as the map of
Russia is printed on his face.

We boarded this steamer, which on its way
to Samara had stopped at Saratoff, the site
of ancient Sarai, where the Tartars once had
their headquarters, referred to in Chaucer's
lines,

At Sara in the land of Tartare

There dwelled a king, who werryed Russie.

Shortly after we had ensconced ourselves in
our comfortable, clean staterooms she started
up stream with her cargo of freight and pas-
sengers.

THE VOLGA 233

River Travel

Every river possesses a peculiar charm of
its own. The Volga was no exception. The
broad decks and capacious cabins of a river
steamer, especially after a long ride in the
cramped quarters of a railway car, offer a
cordial welcome to the tired, dust-begrimed
traveler. The fresh air, the broad views on
every side, the sense of freedom in promenad-
ing the deck or loitering on shore at landing
places all combine to render river travel a
most refreshing change.

The commodious Yangtse steamers plying
between Shanghai and Hankow at times run
close to the green-tilled fields, where Chinese
urchins are riding astride of water-buffaloes
and industrious coolies are tilling the soil or
carrying produce in baskets suspended from
bamboo poles. Now the steamer glides near
ancient walled cities guarded by lofty gate
towers, and anon, it is steaming by the side
of Golden, Silver and Little Orphan Islands,
where art, with her temples, shrines, and pa-
godas, vies with nature with her trees, crags,
and shrubbery. This kaleidoscopic pano-
rama of Oriental landscape and life presents
an ever-varied entertainment to the traveler
on his voyage up China's mightiest stream.

A day's trip down the picturesque minia-
ture river, the Tonegawa, in Japan, affords
a most idyllic refreshing route to Tokyo after

234 STRANGE SIBERIA

the fatiguing jinricksha, basha, or railway
ride to Mkko.

The charm of a Nile voyage is as delight-
ful when enjoyed to-day as it was to the
ancient lotos eaters, and forever lingers in
one's memory as a dream. The intoxicating
atmosphere, the clarity of the desert air, the
lazy dahebiahs, the Bedouin life on river and
shore, the mammoth temple-ruins on the
river-banks all unite in producing an over-
whelming and indelible impression. No won-
der the hustling Yankee loves to bask there.

World-renowned is the Khine with its en-
chantment of castle and legend. The Hud-
son, with its unsightly ice houses above West
Point and its famous Palisades near New
York, is the favorite of Americans. The
grand Columbia is the pride of the North-
west, where big salmon leap high out of the
water and splash back again as the steam-
ship glides near the base of titanic cliffs over
half a mile high, whose frowning brows are
crowned with castellated Ehrenbreitsteins.
The majestic Saint Lawrence laves the lovely
tree-clad shores of the Thousand Islands.
Further oceanward in its mad course the
surging stream plunges through the Sault
and other rapids, tumultuously tossing the
great steamer, so that she quivers from stem
to stern, as though struck by a sudden gale
in mid- Atlantic. The mighty Mississippi, the
"Father of Waters," as the superstitious In-

THE VOLGA 235

dians termed him, is often compared to the
revered "Mother Volga" of the Russians.

So life on the Volga has its own peculiar
charm. The steamers are both large and
comfortable, like those on the Mississippi, and
are even called American. The staterooms
are good-sized and clean with the ubiquitous
icon, though of diminutive size, perched, not
like Poe's raven on the door-lintel, but high
up in its conventional corner opposite the
entrance. The sheets, pillowcases, and bed-
ding are charged extra. The service is ex-
cellent. The cuisine is more Slavonic than
French, yet the traveler by judicious selec-
tion from the elaborate menu, will find the
food quite satisfactory.

Kazan

Early on the morrow our steamer stopped
at the old Tartar city, Kazan, long the
stronghold of the Golden Horde Mohamme-
dans in their rule over Muscovy, and from
which they made their inroads into Europe.
Its name, Kazan, is derived from the Tartar
word meaning "golden kettle," commemorat-
ing the incident of a slave of the first Khan,
who accidentally dropped a golden kettle
in the tributary, Kazanka, which debouches
here into the Volga. The city was founded
by Batu Khan, grandson of Genghis Khan.
In its stubborn resistance to the attacks of
Ivan the Terrible, its streets flowed with the

236 STRANGE SIBERIA

commingled blood of Moslem and Giaour.
The expulsion of the Mohammedans from
Kazan bears the same historic importance
to the Russian as the expulsion of the Moors
from Granada does to the Spaniard. The
siege of Kazan was long drawn out; Ger-
man engineers were employed to spring
mines under the city walls, and a miracu-
lous cross was brought from the Cathedral
of Moscow to bring victory to their arms.
Soon a breach in the walls was made, the
Russian forces entered and slaughtered their
infidel foes. So horrible were the gruesome
piles of the massacred that even Ivan the
Terrible, like Scipio before Carthage, was
moved to tears, exclaiming, "They are not
Christians, but yet they are men." Perhaps
the career of this Muscovite ruler would be
judged with greater leniency if we bore in
mind that he lived at the time of the In-
quisition.

A polite Norwegian commercial traveler
called our attention to some men climbing
up the staircase to the upper deck of our
steamer. They were Mohammedans. To-
ward sunset they mounted aloft, where each
spread out a rug upon which they kneeled
and prostrated themselves, knocking their
foreheads on the deck in their prayers to
Allah, as they endeavored to face toward
Mecca, notwithstanding the ever-swerving
course of our steamer.

THE VOLGA 237

Tolstoy

In its celebrated university, Tolstoy, the
novelist, was once enrolled as a student.
The horoscope foretelling the fickleness of
his nature was even then indicated by his
student life. He matriculated in mathe-
matics, then studied successively law, medi-
cine, and Oriental languages, and finally left
the university without obtaining a degree.
His future career has been well summarized
as "a man who preaches celibacy, and is the
father of thirteen children; who denounces
war, and fought at Sebastopol ; who preaches
purity of life and confesses that he has com-
mitted practically every crime known to
man ; who is an aristocrat of aristocrats, and
yet makes his own fire and dresses like a
peasant ; who writes romances that the world
calls masterpieces, and denounces these
novels as folly; who finds the inspiration of
his life in the gospel of Christ, yet mutilates
the Bible according to his own subjective
fancies, denies the divinity of Jesus, does not
believe in immortality, and scorns the or-
ganized church and its ordinances. Count
Tolstoy is a living paradox."1

On Shore and Stream

At various landing places peasants stood
in double rows, between whom passengers

1 The Zion's Herald, by Professor J. R. Taylor, August
19, 1908.

238 STRANGE SIBERIA

came and went. There they displayed their
wares for sale, such as rye bread, red rad-
ishes, kettles of hot boiled chicken, and pigs'
heads, eggs, milk, and other produce along
with flowers, chiefly lilies of the valley.

High up on the hills away from the river
we passed numbers of windmills, sometimes
as many as five or six clustered together.

Strange objects were occasionally passed
floating downstream. Immense rafts or
timber boats, built of thousands of large logs,
tier on tier, into the shape of a bulky vessel
like Noah's ark, were drifting down toward
the Caspian. Sometimes two of these were
fastened together below and connected above
by bridges, capped with houses like conning
towers for the lumbermen. Then again we
passed by numerous other river craft, includ-
ing peculiar oil boats with decks awash,
carrying the crude oil of the Caucasus.

On the morning of June 7 the heights of
the world-renowned annual fair town ap-
peared in the distance. Like the Alcazars,
or fortified palaces of Seville, Toledo, and
other Spanish cities, the Kremlins or lofty
citadel-palaces of Kazan, Nijnf-Novgorod,
Moscow, and other Kussian cities are always
prominent and interesting places to view
and visit. Modern trolley cars and antique
edifices unite the old with the new in this
busy city. The widely extended mud-flat,
covered by the many buildings of these Fair

THE VOLGA 239

Grounds, was inaccessible save by boat, for
the bridge across the Oka was being repaired.
A month later all would be bustle and confu-
sion at the great Fair of Nijni-Novgorod.

Limit of Fame

The Volga loomed up before the ecstatic
vision of the tea-guzzling scholar, Samuel
Johnson, as the far-off limit of fame. Boswell
records how one evening at the Essex Head
Club in London, Johnson startled the com-
pany by exclaiming : "O ! Gentlemen ! I must
tell you a great thing. The empress of
Russia [Catherine II] has ordered The Ram-
bler to be translated into the Russian lan-
guage, so I should be read on the banks of
the Volga. Horace boasts that his fame
would extend to the Rhone. Now the Volga
is farther from me than the Rhone from
Horace."1 Facts are stubborn things, and
truth is sometimes unpalatable. But, as we
scanned both banks of this broad stream, we
could detect no signs whatever of any na-
tives or foreigners, singly or in groups, en-
gaged in perusing the pages of The Rambler,
or any other book. Perchance the river-
banks were still too damp and chilly, since
every now and then patches of winter snow
were still visible, hidden from the sun in
shady nooks and ravines by the river sides.
Whether during the long-drawn-out sultry

1 Boswell's Life of Johnson, 1847 edition, p. 755.

240 STRANGE SIBERIA

days of July and August lovers of literature
idly recline upon the grassy banks of the
Volga, as is the vogue on summer afternoons
by the Cherwell and Isis at Oxford, our ex-
perience on the Volga furnishes no proof.

CHAPTER XVII

Through Russia

The people, the Russian people,

God grant their night is past,
And the gloom of their weary waiting

Lost in the dawn at last!
From the Baltic to the Okhotsk Sea

The stars have heard their wail,
And the steppe-winds borne their prayers to heaven

That Right may yet prevail.

The people, the patient people,

They are the strength, the power —
Their hearts are true to the Russian Land

Though darkest clouds may lower.
It was Yermak, the valiant Cossack,

Who broad Siberia won;
Through Minin, peasant of Nijni,

Were the tyrant Poles undone;

And Archangels' Lomonosoff,

Child of the common throng,
A fisher lad, was first to shape

The sounding Russ in song.
The people, the trusting people,

God grant their night Is past,
And the gloom of their weary waiting

Lost in the dawn at last.

— Edna Dean Proctor.

Ride to Moscow

Nijni-Novgorod rivals Naples and New
York in the rapacity and extortion practiced
on strangers passing within or without their
241

242 STRANGE SIBERIA

gates. A midnight buffet-sleeper train of
antiquated "Wagons Lits" cars whirled us
across the level country to the fascinating
old capital, Moscow.

Moscow

What especially interested us in this
strikingly composite Muscovite capital was
the Kitai Gorod, or "Chinese City," sur-
rounded by its city wall. This so-called Chi-
nese Wall is as much of a caricature of the
walls of Peking, Nankin, or other Chinese
cities, as the vile decoctions called American
ice-cream soda in European cities are of the
genuine article sold in New York, Chicago,
or other American cities.

The Redeemer's Gate

The Kremlin is the heart of Moscow, as
Moscow is the heart of Kussia. How highly
the Kremlin is honored is well expressed in
Viazemski's lines:

The Kremlin is our Sanctuary and our Fortress;
The source of our strength and the treasury of our
faith.

The most popular gateway into its historic
precincts is through the Redeemer's Gate.
This remarkable gateway was built by skilled
workmen from other lands. English archi-
tects crowned it with the beautiful Gothic
towers, but the massive gateway itself is the
product of Italian workmanship, as similarly

THROUGH RUSSIA 243

in India Italian artists wrought at Delhi,
Agra, and elsewhere those wonderful crea-
tions of palace, tomb, and mosque. During
the past few years a Florentine mosaic expert
has been employed by Lord Curzon to restore
the beauty of the famous palace at Delhi.
The Redeemer's Gate was built by a Milan-
ese artisan, just one year before Columbus
discovered America.

Over the entrance to the Gate is the mir-
aculous icon of the Redeemer, to which
reverence is paid by all, Tsar, peasant, citi-
zen, and stranger alike. "Hats off!" is the
rule on passing through the Redeemer's Gate,
as in entering Grant's Tomb in New York.
Occasionally a person, forgetful or disre-
spectful, fails to doff his hat. Instantly a
guard approaches to remind him of the cus-
tomary etiquette. Every man will show his
real breeding whether at home or abroad. In
1879 a party of American and British tour-
ists visiting Constantinople were disgusted
at the boorish insolence of a Russian officer.
It was Friday, when the Sultan was in the
habit of riding from his palace to worship
in a mosque nearby. As his Majesty passed
in his imperial carriage, every one, native
and foreign, politely saluted him, except this
tall handsome Russian. Alone he stood bolt
upright in his hired barouche, insultingly
displaying Russian bearishness against the
sovereign of Turkey — a piece of brazen im-

244 STRANGE SIBERIA

pertinence equaling that of Count Robert of
Paris in that same Byzantian capital. It
will be remembered that the Emperor Alex-
ius, in order to insure respectful obeisance
from the bold but often rude Crusaders, had
the door into the imperial reception room of
his palace made so low that each guest on
entering was compelled to bow down before
the emperor, seated on his throne directly
opposite. Count Robert of Paris, discovering
this, simply turned around and backed in,
to the dismay of all present.

French Revolution

If, as some predict, the French Revolution
is to be reenacted in Russia, the Gallery of
the Rumyanzev Museum will play a subtle
but powerful part. On its walls hangs a
large oil painting, depicting a terribly
shocking tragedy from the French Revolu-
tion. A countess of genteel, cultured mien
and dressed in fashionable costume had been
horribly maltreated and murdered. Her dis-
figured corpse, with her costly robes sadly
torn and stained with blood, had been left
like a dead dog on the highway. The mob
of infuriated peasants, armed with impro-
vised weapons, who had perpetrated this
deed of villainy, were retiring to a village in
the distance, while high up on a frowning
cliff in the forest stood the sacked castle, a
victim to the devouring flames.

THROUGH RUSSIA 245

What's in a Name ?

Some years ago a number of benevolent
Russians, imitating the Christian activities
in the congested quarters of English aud
American cities, started similar work in the
slums of Moscow, designating their work by
the English word, " Settlement." To the
Russian civil authorities this foreign term
was obnoxious, so they stopped this enter-
prise for one year. Last year exactly the
same altruistic activities were renewed with-
out any interference on the part of the gov-
ernment, since it had been rechristened and
was now called "Children's Work and Play."

Sparrow Hill

A drive outside the city to the heights of
Sparrow Hill brought us to the historic spot
where Napoleon first beheld Moscow, and
afforded us a magnificent outlook over the
ancient capital, unrolled as a map at our
feet. When Mohammed from the heights of
Lebanon first gazed upon Damascus, gleam-
ing in all its loveliness like an emerald in
the desert, he was so entranced with its
beauty that he gave orders that the city be
spared from sack and slaughter. One of
the most touching episodes in the life of our
Saviour occurred when he was making his
triumphal entry into Jerusalem. He was
rounding the southern shoulder of Olivet for
the last time, when suddenly the glorious

246 STRANGE SIBERIA

temple, the city walls and gates, with the
mass of other buildings, burst in all their
splendor upon his vision. Utterly overcome
by his feelings, and yearning for its highest
welfare, "he wept over it." No such senti-
ment troubled Napoleon. On Sparrow Hill
he ordered his artillery to be planted and
the city to be bombarded. This being the
case, is it any wonder that the grand, costly
Church of the Redeemer has been erected and
a service of thanksgiving is held every year
to commemorate the defeat of the Corsican ?
But to find the most simple yet expressive
memorial to Napoleon's disastrous Russian
campaign, one must travel seven hundred
miles westward to Vilna, Poland, where, not
far from the city where the French army
barely escaped annihilation, is a monument
which reads on one side, "Napoleon Buona-
parte passed this way in 1812, with 400,000
men," and on the other, "Napoleon Buona-
parte passed this way in 1812, with 9,000
men."

Saint Petersburg

As the fine structures, parks, and roads of
the "model settlements" of Shanghai and
Tientsin afford the Chinese a peep into
Western civilization, so Saint Petersburg,
Russia's European capital, was built by
order of Peter the Great to "open a window
into Europe." However, as Emperor Nicho-

THROUGH RUSSIA 247

las has candidly stated, "Saint Petersburg
is Russian, but it is not Russia."

Saint Isaac's Cathedral

Saint Isaac's Cathedral, for instance, is
modeled with severe simplicity along Euro-
pean lines. It was erected to the honor of
Saint Isaac of Dalmatia, on whose festival,
May 30, 1672, Peter the Great was born. Its
foundations, like those of Saint Mark's at
Venice, are built upon thousands of piles, at
the cost of nearly one million rubles, and
constantly need repairing. The first edifice
was made of wood, which afterward was re-
placed with stone. Then Catharine II, who
erected on a mammoth rock in the adjoining
park the bronze statue of Peter the Great
riding a horse in a fantastic attitude, began
to rebuild it in marble, which Paul I slovenly
finished in brick. A Russian wit who epit-
omized the successive building operations
in these words, "This church is the symbol
of three reigns, granite, pride, and destruc-
tion," had to pay the penalty for his temerity
by banishment to Siberia. The present grand
and elegant Cathedral was begun in 1819
and completed in 1858. The lavish expen-
diture of choice marble, fine granite, and
figured bronze in its construction, and the
enormous value of its brilliant ikonostas, and
the sacred gold and silver vessels of its
church service, are appalling, staggering to

248 STRANGE SIBERIA

the imagination. The titanic blocks are
built into the form of a Greek cross, but the
colonnnades of its portico are an imitation
of the Pantheon at Rome. Its majestic
solemnity throws upon the visitor a pall of
gloom and awe, similar to that experienced
on entering the Escorial. That gloomy
monarch, Philip II, with the wealth of Mex-
ico and Peru at his feet, sat day by day on a
neighboring hillside superintending the crea-
tion of that one compact, colossal mass of
stone, called the Escorial, combining cathe-
dral, monastery, palace, and mausoleum.
The pyramids of Egypt and the Escorial of
Spain seem to belong to the same old aristo-
cratic family. Both stand solemnly and
silently alone in their majestic massiveness
on the sands of the desert. The somber,
though rich mass of Saint Isaac's betrays
the same racial characteristics of depressing
immensity, as though a distant nouveau riche
relative in "the Land of the North."

CHAPTER XVIII

Homeward Bound

The more you see of Russia, the more deeply
you fall in love with Uncle Sam. — The Lady of the
Decoration.

Departure

With a sense of relief akin to that felt in
leaving India in 1907, we stepped aboard the
scrupulously clean Finnish steamer, Von
Doebeln, moored alongside the cholera-
stricken city of Saint Petersburg. Over two
years previous we boarded a Messageries
Maritimes steamer at Bombay, while the
plague was raging in northern and central
India, after we had almost trodden upon a
dead rat in an alley at Delhi, and had nearly
touched another on a stone wall at Bombay.
White streaks of chloride-of-lime were still
marking the street gutters and other parts of
Russia's capital, when the spotless Von
Doebeln, at 6 P. m. on June 19, loosened from
her moorings and, dropping down the Neva,
steamed into the Gulf of Finland, on its
way to Helsingfors and Stockholm. The
next morning found us making a stop of
several hours at Helsingfors, the capital of
Finland, where we enjoyed a short ramble
ashore. Then the steamer plowed its way

249

250 STRANGE SIBERIA

westward, arriving at Stockholm at one
o'clock in the afternoon of the following day.

The Voyage

On this passage the steamer's course was
amid a multitude of islands and islets, mak-
ing the voyage indescribably delightful, with
their ever-varying sylvan scenery, rivaling
that of Lake George, New York. Only for
about an hour does the steamer cross the
open sea, and that at midnight, so our party
were unaware whether in the open ocean
there were heavy seas or not.

Meals on these Finnish steamers are served
in a most unique, democratic fashion. A
superabundant variety of food, such as cold
salmon, ham, sardines, caviare, radishes,
salads, butter, bread, and a few hot dishes,
as fried fish, stewed kidneys, and fried eggs,
with plates and cutlery are piled up on a
long table in the center of the dining saloon.
Each guest is expected to take from this
table a plate, knife, and fork and, after
choosing whatever he wishes, he goes to his
assigned place at one of the many small
tables arranged around the sides of the room
and there sits down. After he has succeeded
in disposing of this preliminary repast, a
regular course meal is served. For instance,
if dinner, the waiters bring in soup, fish,
roast, salad, and dessert. As one may sur-
mise, this ample preliminary meal of ap-

HOMEWARD BOUND 251

petizing food often suffices. It was pleasing
to notice that although each traveler was at
liberty to go to the long table and help him-
self, there was no evidence of pushing and
grabbing — so different from many a hungry
crowd on American and British lines of
travel. Here everyone was considerate of
his neighbor, and everything was done de-
cently and in order. The after-dinner coffee,
which was daintily served on the after-deck,
was pronounced the finest ever tasted, being
unexcelled by the thick, sweet concoction of
Constantinople and Cairo, or the amber,
clear beverage of Paris and Madrid.

Quarantine

On account of the cholera at Saint Peters-
burg the Swedish health authorities detained
all the passengers until each had been pro-
vided with a ticket and a sheet of paper as
large as foolscap, printed in three languages,
informing him that for four consecutive days
he must appear before the local health au-
thorities personally, or be subjected to a
heavy fine. Even when visiting Upsala, be-
fore the expiration of the time-limit, we had
to waste nearly half a day in calling upon a
medical officer. One lawless American young
lady disregarded this daily visit and had to
pay a considerable fine, to her surprise and
disgust. Like pill-taking, quarantine though
necessary, is generally unpalatable.

252 STRANGE SIBERIA

Russian Detectives

Friday, the last day of our stay in that
charming capital of Sweden, the city was
being gaily decorated in honor of the ex-
pected visit of Tsar Nicholas II on the mor-
row, and Russian detectives were very solici-
tous lest any outrage should be perpetrated
on the sacred person of the Autocrat of all
the Russias. We chanced to be in the office
of the "Northern Travel Bureau," engaging
our passage across the Atlantic, when the
ticket agent asked us whether we had
noticed the man who had just hurriedly
slammed the front door on his way to the
street. He informed us that he was a Rus-
sian detective on the track of two Russians,
who had purchased tickets in this office a
few minutes earlier. This detective had
asked the agent what kind of tickets they
had bought, and seemed satisfied to find noth-
ing suspicious in the transaction. The inci-
dent serves to indicate the excessive surveil-
lance of Russian detectives.

Stay in Sweden

In spite of the quarantine fetters, shack-
ling our movements day by day, our sojourn
in Stockholm was delightful, including an
excursion to Upsala and repeated visits to
the open-air museum at Skansen, with its
many attractions. Skansen has the reputa-
tion of being the pioneer open-air museum of

Russian Chapel at Wiesbaden

HOMEWARD BOUND 253

the world. Here could be studied the historic
progress of the Swedes from their earliest
past up to modern times. Relics of bygone
days, herds of reindeer and other animals,
and gaudy costumes of peasants from dis-
tant districts attracted crowds. The long
summer twilight thronged the streets and
parks with citizens and guests from other
lands. Dinner was served very early, at half-
past five in the afternoon, so that all might
take advantage of the delicious coolness of
the broad daylight evenings and return be-
fore dark for a light nine-o'clock supper.

A Russian Memento

A beautiful Russian chapel is situated a
little below the summit of the Neroberg in
the environs of Wiesbaden. It was erected
as a mausoleum for the Duchess Elizabeth
Michailowna, a Russian princess, and is built
in the form of a Greek cross, and its interior
is lavishly decorated with marble and gilt.
Its roof is surmounted by five golden domes,
ornamented by double Greek crosses. It is
a perfect gem in itself, but when seen glisten-
ing in the bright sunshine through the long
funnel-opening cut in the dense, green foliage
of the forest, its resplendent beauty is only
surpassed by the Wartburg Castle at Eise-
nach, when viewed through the arboreal tele-
scope from Hohe Sonne, some three miles
awav.

254 STRANGE SIBERIA

Home Again

After bidding farewell to Russia, our route
took us by way of Finland, Sweden, Den-
mark, Germany, Belgium, France, and Eng-
land, where we tarried at various alluring
places a day, or a week or so, as the fancy
took us. Then we left England in the swift
steamship Lusitania for New York. It was
really provoking, notwithstanding the lux-
uriousness of the steamer's equipment, to
find the length of our voyage trimmed off so
short at both ends. A little more than four
days after we had lost sight of land in Eu-
rope we came in sight of the American side
of the Atlantic.

Robinson Crusoe

Robinson Crusoe's thrilling narrative has
captivated many a youth, who in his later
life may have forgotten that this hero's last
exciting journey was from China through
Siberia and Russia to his old home in Eng-
land. He narrates how he left Russia by
boat at Archangel, as we did at Saint Peters-
burg. A certain devout elderly acquaintance
of ours, whose pastor's preaching had been
adversely criticized, taking his part replied,
"But I always like his closing remarks." So
after reading to the finish Robinson Crusoe's
long life of adventure and travel, we heartily
indorse his closing remarks: "And here [in

HOMEWARD BOUND 255

England], resolving to harass myself no
more, I am preparing for a longer journey
than all these, having lived seventy-five
years, a life of infinite variety, and learned
sufficiently to know the value of retirement,
and the blessing of ending our days in
peace."

INDEX

Adirondacks, 87
Afghanistan, 167
Aksakoff, 26
Alaric, 16
Albazin, 91
Alexander I, 158, 202
Alexander, IL 166, 167
Alexander III, 111, 126, 148
Alexander the Great, 14
Alexandra vo, 11
Alexandre vskaya, 110
Alexius, Emperor, 244
Amur River, 91, 92, 111
Angara River, 96, 98, 99, 111,

127, 128
Astor House, 41
Atkinson, 225, 226
Atkinson, Commander, 171

B

Baedeker 10, 21, 88, 109

Bagdanoff, Rev., 58

Baikal, Lake, 60, 94, 111, 128

Baku, 217

Bank, Russo-Chinese, 19, 56,

90, 91, 93, 212
Barnaul, 211, 212, 219
Basaicha, 179
Bates, Lindon, Jr., 93
Beaulieu, LeRoy, 19
Beecher, Henry Ward, 77
Beveridge, Hon. A. J., 134,

192
Bezpopovsty, 159
Bible, honor to, 137-139
Biisk, 212

Black Hundred, the, 188
Blagoveshchenk, 92
Bobrinski Count, 160, 161
Bolsche Kaya, 111
Boswell, 34
Boxers, 22

Bradshaw's Guidebook, 100
Brass Sleigh, 17
Breshkovsky, Catherine, 187
''Bubble and Squeak," 65

Bubbling Well Road, 15
Buckley, J. M., 156
Butter, Siberian, 218-221

Cairo, 15, 104, 204

Camel, 16, 67

Canadian Pacific Steamship

Company, 65
Caravan Route, 23, 93
Cathedral Service, 207
Catherine II, 187, 204, 247
Caucasus, 23
Cemetery, Russian, 41
Champs Elysees, 15
Changli, China, 30, 31
Chaucer, 232
Chelyabinsk, 222
China, 18, 77, 111
Chinese Eastern Railway, 57
Chinkiang, China, 33
Chinovnik, 76-82
Chin Shih Wang, Emperor, 34
Chita, 89-91
Church, Orthodox, 78, 79, 153,

161, 164
Cimmeria, 231
Clay Figures, 14
Codex Sinaiticus, 12
Constantinople, 15, 59
Convent of Saint Catherine, 13
Cortez, 145

Courtesy of Officials, 12
Cowboys, 14

Cranston, Bishop Earl, 166
Crusoe, Robinson, 255
Customs Examination, 87-89

Damskaya, 90
Danube, 74
Darius, 39
Dekabrista, 90
Demidoff, 212, 225, 226
Denby, Hon. Charles, 165
Dentists, Siberian, 200

256

INDEX

257

Detectives, Russian, 252
De Windt, 155
De Witte, 62
Dillon, Dr., 189
Dining Car, 66
Dnieper, River, 59, 171
Dogs, Siberian, 100
Dolgorouki, Prince, 75
Dostoyevky, 25, 216
Doukhorborsts, 159, 163, 164
Dresden, 28

E

Edelweiss, 73, 85
Education, 125, 126
Eggs, Russian, 221
Ekaterinburg, 204, 222
Emerson, R. W., 62
Escorial, Spain, 248
Esperanto, 28
Evening Post, the, of New

York, 104, 164
Exiles, 151, 152
Express Trains, 64

Finland, 118

Finnish Steamers, 11, 250
Fiske, John, 74
French Revolution, 244
Freshfield, D. W., 72
Friendship of Russians and
Americans, 133-137

Galoches, Russian, 17

Ganz, Hugo, 157

Garibaldi, 57

Garroters, 100

Geil, William Edgar, 37

Genghis Khan, 16, 73-75, 203,

235
Genius of a People, 9
Gibbon, 76
Gilmour, James, 94
Gobi, Desert of, 22, 93
Goethe, 40

Golden Horde, the, 74, 82
Granville, A. B., 225, 226
Great Wall of China, the, 34,

165
Green, Andrew H,. 102
Greener, W. O. (Wirt Gerrare),

40, 57, 72, 100, 168, 177

H

Harbin, 19, 22, 40, 49, 51-61,

87
Harper's Weekly, 187
"Hats Off," 243
Hawaii, 171
Helsingfors, 119, 249
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg,

13 231
Herodotus, 231
Hildebrand, 80
Himalayas, 74
Hirschman, Baron, 57
Holidays, Russian, 114-116
Homer, 231

Hotel Metropole, 104-108
Hotel Rates, 54, 107
Humboldt, 211
Hunghutze, 49
Huns, 16

Icon, 66, 104, 207, 235, 243
Ignatieff, General, 142
Immigration, 150, 151, 213
India, Railways in, 64
Irish Jaunting Car, 15
Irkutsk, 9, 12, 22, 100-139
Irtysh, 97, 146, 214, 216, 217
Ito, Prince, 49

Ivan the Terrible, 81, 152, 235,
236

Japanese, 16

Jasenskai, Colonel Rudolph,

172
Jermak, 145-147
Jewell, Marshall, 16, 119
Jews in Russia, 17, 132, 133,

140-144
Johnson, Samuel, 34, 239
Joubert, Carl, 158
Journey, length of, 20

K

Kalgan, China, 22, 73, 93, 165
Kang-Hsi, Emperor, 92
Kant, 181
Karnak, 84
Kass River, 97
Kazan, 235
"Keep-a-tok," 68, 213
Kennan, George, 189, 198
Kertch, 231
Ket River, 97

258

STRANGE SIBERIA

Kharborovsk, 100
Khilkoff, Prince, 63
Khlysts, 159
Kiachta, 93
Kiev, 59, 76
King-an-Mountains, 72
Kodaks, 56, 120
Koenigsberg, 22, 181
Kokovsto, M., 49
Korea, 48, 111
Korff, Count, 160, 161
Kourbski, Prince, 153
Kourgan, 218, 219
Krasnoyarsk, 176, 178
Krause, Alexis, 51, 147, 167,

170
Kuan-Cheng' tze, 48, 51
Kumiss Sanitarium, 227
Kunst and Albers, 91
Kuropatkin, 58, 97
Kusmitsch, Theodore, 202
Kyoto, Japan, 104

Ladv of the Decoration, the,

183. 249
Lakehurst, New Jersey, 16
Language, Russian, 25-29
Latimer, R. S., 158, 161, 162
Leather, Russian, 86, 119
Legend of Meng Chiang Nu,

35, 36
Lehigh University, 22
Lena River, 114
Li Kamon no Kimi, 25
Library, Imperial, 13
Lincoln, Abraham, 80, 86, 167
Literature, Russian, 25, 26
Literature, Yellow, 200
Lru Fang, Rev., 21
Longfellow, 140, 180
Lotus Eaters, 85
Lusitania, Steamship, 254
Lutheran Church, 21, 108-110,

205, 206

M

Mahan, Captain A. T., 30
Makaroff, Admiral, 148
Makoushin, 137, 185, 191
Manchuria, 16, 17, 19, 22, 39,

87, 147, 171
Mangon, James G., 83
Marketplace, Tomsk, 104
Marriage Hindrances, 132, 133
Mary, Queen, 80
Mascot, 12

Matsushima Bay, 11

Mayers, Mr., 31

McCormick, 38, 40, 71, 148

Meng Chiang Nii, 35

Mennonites, 159 _

Michailowna, Princess, 253

Migration, 53

Milton, 123

Minerals, 224

Minusinsk, 179

Missovaia, 94

Mohammedan, 197, 203, 236

Molokans, 159, 162

Monastery, Saint Innocent,
126-130

Mongol, 16, 76, 81, 93

Monument of Tears, 18, 223

Morrison, Robert, 94

Moscow, 16, 18, 19, 76, 135,
142, 241, 242, 245

Motor Car. 16

Mukden, 22 38, 48

Museum, Dresden, 28; Ir-
kutsk, 112-114; Metropoli-
tan, 14; National, 14; Saint
Petersburg, Alexander III.,
148; Rumyanzef, 244;
Tomsk, 28

Music, Church, 122-124, 192

N

Nankow Pass, 22

Napoleon, 75, 148, 149, 245,
246

Negro, American, 117

Nekrasov, 90

Nevelskoi, Admiral, 24

New England, 77

New York, 12, 14, 102, 104

New York Sun, the, 172

New York Times, the, 172

Nicholas I, 24

Nicholas II, 62, 158

Nijni-Novgorod, 103, 138, 238,
239 241

Nikopol, Vase of, 12, 13, 231

Noble, E., 217

Nord-Express, 11

Norman, Henry, 171

Northwestern Christian Advo-
cate, 70

Novgorod, Old, 59

Obi River, 97, 214
Omsk, 213, 217, 218, 219
Outlook, the, 104, 185, 201

INDEX

259

Painters, Russian, 152
Palace, Imperial, Mukden, 43
Pale of Settlement, 140
Pallas, P. S., 222
Pantheon, Rome, 57, 248
Park, City, Tomsk, 198
Parsons, William Barclay, 38
Partition of Poland, 140
Pashkoff, Colonel, 159, 160,

161
Passports, 12
Patent Medicine, 69
Peking, China, 20, 22
"Pepper-pot," 65
Perovskaya, Sophie, 187
Perry, Commodore, 25, 213
Peter the Great, 28, 78, 91,

157, 212, 247
Petropaulovsk, 217
Philip II, 82, 161, 248
Philippines, 140
Pigeons in Russia, 154
Pobiedonostzeff, 80, 81, 160,

161
Pogroms, 142
Polo, Marco, 26
Popovsty, 159
Porcelain, Chinese, 44
Port Arthur, 16, 40-43, 148,

172
Postroad, Siberian, 176
Prison, Siberian, 110, 197
Pristan, Harbin, 40, 58-60
Proctor, Edna D., 241
Pskoff, 81
Putnam-Weale, B. L., 40, 60,

169
Pyramids, 16, 34

Quarantine, 251
Quebec, 18

R

Radstock, Lord, 160
Ragsdale, Consul, 13
Rambaud, 59, 157, 228
Raskolniks, 164-166
Reclus, 84
Reid, Arnot, 136
Riverside Drive, 15
River Travel, 233
Robert of Paris, Count, 244
Roberts, J. H., 22, 27, 166

Ronaldshay, Lord, 214
Roosevelt, Colonel Theodore,

114, 125, 149, 208
Rosenberg, Leon, 143
Rotten Row, 15
Ryepin, 152

Saint Isaac's Cathedral, 247,

248
Saint Lawrence River, 11
Saint Petersburg, 11, 12, 13,

16, 17, 18, 24, 90, 142, 148,

165, 172, 246, 247
Saint Sophia Cathedrals, 59
Samara, 65, 228, 231, 232
Samarkand, 217
Sarai, 232
Saratoff, 232
Scarfoglio, Antonio, 174
Schlesinger, M. L., 188
Scotland, 19

Scythians, 14, 39, 231, 232
Selenga River, 92
Selenginsk, 93
Settlement Work, 245
Shanghai, 15

Signposts on Railways, 39
Simons, Dr. G. A., 162
Sinai, Mount, 13
Skansen Open- Air Museum,

252
Skobeleff, General, 147
Sla-to-ust, 227
Smith, Dr. J. Purvis, 90
Sparrow Hill, 245
Stallybrass, William, 93
Steiner, Edward A., 173
Stockholm, 11, 249, 250, 252
Story, Robert, 62
Stundists, 159
Sungari River, 59
Swan, Edward, 93
Swayne, Major, 214
Sytchewa, Nassili, 131

Taiga, 20, 180-182

Tamerlane, 74

Tammany, New York, 20, 189

Tartars, 76, 82

Tashkent, 217

Taylor, J. R., 237

Te (Virtue) Pastor, 36

Tekkes, 147

Terpigoreff, 26

260

STRANGE SIBERIA

Thousand Islands, 11
imbuctoo, 103
Time for Travel, 10
Timur, 75
Ting, General, 32
Tischendorf, 13
Tissot, Victor, 9
Todleben, General, 145
Togo, Admiral, 42
Tokyo, 15, 84
Tolstoy, Count Dmitry, 80
Tolstoy, Count Leo, 81, 162,

168, 203, 222, 237
Tomsk, 12, 20, 21, 28, 100, 103,

174-210
Torrey, William A., 16
Trans-Siberian Railway, 10,

17, 18, 23, 165, 188, 222
Treaty of Paris, 52
Tretyakov Ga lery, 152
Trohsa Monastery, 128
Trossachs, 10
Trubetskoy, Lady, 90
Turley, Mr., 59
Turner, S., 190
203 Metre Hill, 41

U

Uda River, 92

Uganda, 141

Ular, Alexander, 180

United States Department of

Agriculture, 31
University of Tomsk, 189-191
Unter den Linden, 15
Urals, 18, 19, 222-227
Urga, 93

Villari, 63

Vitim Gold Mines, 111

Vladikaukas, 23, 217

Vladimir, 69

Vladivostok, 18, 20, 23, 24, 57,

91, 111, 197
Vodka, 69, 179, 210
Volga, 171, 239, 240
Von Plevne, 180
Von Schierbrand, 26, 40, 69,

70, 162, 186

W

Waliszewski, 28
Wallace, Sir Donald Macken-
zie, 82
Wall Street, New York, 57
Warsaw, 11

Washburn, George, 145
Washington, Booker T., 106
Washington, George, 80
Waterways, Siberian, 96, 97
Wedding, 133, 191-194
Wenyon, Dr. Charles, 114, 180
White Birch, 84
Whittier, 118
Wiesbaden, 229, 253
Wilkinson, Samuel, 143
Wilkinson, Sir Gardner, 155
Wingate, Major-General, 15
Winnipeg, 163
Wolkhonskv, Princess, 90
Women with Careers, 186
Wood, J. N. Price, 217
Wright, Elizabeth W., 43-48

Van Dyke, Henry, 9
Van Norden, 102
Vay de Vaya, Count, 49
Verchne-Udinsk, 92
Veregin, Peter, i63
Vereguine, Father, 163, 164
Vereshchagin, 147-150
Victor, Emmanuel, 57

Yakutsk, 114
Yankee Notion, 17
Yaroshenko, 152, 154
Yenesei River, 97, 178-180,
214

Zabel, Eugen, 149, 156

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Strange Siberia along
the Trans-Siberian railway